NY Times Day Six: Paper of Wreckage

We're now on day six of the Times' shameful silence on the Duke rape hoax. What possibly could these folks be waiting for? An indecent interval that would allow the paper to distance itself from some of the culpability in what Tom Sowell calls, "A Gutless Lynch Mob?"

The Times has to shoulder some of the blame here because of its woefully inadequate coverage of the episode, a shortcoming that has to be traced back to the ideological blinders that has seeped out of its predictable editorial page right into the news coverage. As Sowell points out, the perfect storm of race, class and gender was just too juicy for the bien pensants to pass up on.

The exoneration of the students, two of whom are from this area and whose parents are probably long-time readers of the paper, is just the right opportunity for the paper to underscore the journalistic importance of following the facts and not pet theories. It would also be the time for the Times to reiterate its position, elaborated in its editorial on the African-American man released from a Georgia jail after eighteen years of false imprisonment, on the need to cautiously evaluate the accusations of rape.

All of this is important because of the need to be vigilant about the occasions when rape has occurred and the perpetrators of this heinous act need to be righteously brought to justice. In the case of the Duke3, however, it is almost too late for the Times to do the right thing. Maybe the editors can get the intrepid Bob Herbert to do the proper post mortem, after all he is the right man to somehow link all of this to Katrina and George Bush.