Duke Thoughts

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper has declared the three falsely accused Duke lacrosse players innocent. By inference, he also declared their accuser Crystal Gayle Mangum a liar, though he declined to file criminal charges against her for perjury, which would seem to be warranted. However, he made one very interesting comment in the course of his statement. "I think a lot of people owe a lot of apologies to a lot of people," Cooper said. "I think those people ought to consider doing that." He also said the charges resulted from a "tragic rush to accuse and a failure to verify serious allegations."

I agree. The 88 Duke professsors who published their libelous and false advertisement, the Durham Police Department and Corporal Addison who published the libelous and dangerous "Wanted" poster, the as-yet-unnamed persons responsible for the infamous vigilante poster with 43 of the 46 lacrosse players' pictures, the Duke administration who so badly failed the young men entrusted to them and the national and local media who failed so signally in discharging their duty to be fair and responsible. All of these should be held liable to the full extent the law allows. I am not normally in favor of lawsuits, but this is a classic case where they would seem to be necessary for these young men to reclaim a measure of the justice that until Roy Cooper spoke had seluded them.

And what of the other enablers for the liar who accused them? Don Imus asked a question on his show this morning "When will Alk Sharpton apologize to the Duke players?" Imus is himself a sad excuse for a human being (see his disgusting comments on the Rutgers women's basketball team), but for once he did ask the right question. So what about it, Sharpton? When will we see an apology from you and Jesse Jackson and the other race-baiters who inflamed this case so badly and with such tragic results?