Readers’ Note: The Anon reader/commenter below is describing exactly what I seek to do here; and how I try to respect you while making the case for things I believe in.
My guess is that most of you reading the comment are going to say something like: “That’s right. And that's why I visit at JinC.”
I also think Anon’s “here’s a suggestion” is very good advice.
John
________________________________________________
anonymous 9:08 PM wrote:
...in their hearts, your audience knows that what I have said is true...
Not really, anonymous. You, along with most of the reporters covering this case are missing one of the important elements of blogging: the hyperlink.
What John in Carolina says Pres. Brodhead says doesn't mean that much in and of itself. He links to accounts and sources. (If Brodhead posted transcripts, he'd link to them.)
John in Carolina's reader can follow those links. We can follow analyses and links provided by other bloggers, notably KC Johnson, on the same and related topics. Thus, we can decide for ourselves (1) whether John in Carolina is a generally trustworthy source and analyst, and (2) whether we agree with his interpretation on any given point.
Readers judge my comments by the same standards.
Now for the bad news. Your contributions also get evaluated this way.
anonymous 9:08 PM, here's a suggestion. Rather than continuing down the nanny-nanny-noo-noo route in John in Carolina's comments section, why don't you start a blog of your own (it's free)? You'll be in complete control of what you post; no deletion threats. Then you can apply this powerful tool (the hyperlink) to your arguments, the way John does for his.
In my opinion, John, KC Johnson, and the other prominent bloggers covering the Duke Hoax have shown themselves to be open to differences of opinion. You'll have no trouble leaving polite comments, offering readers links to your posts. People will click through and see what you have to say.
Then you can lose the victim pose that permeates your last comment, and focus on what you think the issues really are.
My two cents.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
This reader “gets” me and most of you, too
Posted by JWM at 3:35 PM
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14 comments:
John, you do great work. But I don't understand this last post. What am I missing?
I wrote what 'John in Carolina' reprinted here in the comments thread of Responding to Readers’Comments – 9–12–06. It's at or near the end, at 12:14 am.
In that thread, one of the multiple "anonymous" writers repeatedly takes JinC to task for characterizing President Brodhead's words and actions in the Duke Lacrosse Rape Hoax Case. At 7:56pm, s/he wrote
Of course in the fantasy world of the Brodhead bashers, a statement from President Brodhead can never just be given its plain meaning. Instead, it must be twisted and distorted and new words must be added so that the statement can be characterized as dark and evil. When I ask myself why you and the other ringleaders of this fantasy world are doing this, the conclusion I reach is that you are pandering to the more extreme and rabid LAX team apologists in your audience.
You can see the rest of the argument on that thread, though it's hard to follow as remarks from this "anonymous" are salted in with other commenters also named "anonymous."
Perhaps Brodhead is being unjustly attacked for what he has said... and what he hasn't said. An example of the former. An instance of the latter is here. For perspective, the New Yorker piece that offers a highly sympathetic portrait of Brodhead is here.
If "anonymous" wants to contest JinC's unflattering characterization of Pres. Brodhead's leadership, s/he should do so. I assume that, like me, most readers would be happy to discover that Duke's President has indeed been taking a leadership role in this case.
Dear Amac,
Thanks for explaining to Anon who is maybe the troll.
John
Please be assured that I am not the troll. I find your site both informative and enlightening.
John,
I can see that I am getting under your skin and that you are desperate to get rid of me as that would allow you to continue to take cheap shots at President Brodhead with impunity. Since amac has come to your defense, you have been quick to embrace his comments and to pat him on the back for getting it, unlike me I suppose.
However, I am not sure that amac really does get it. I guess it depends on what you and your audience want this website to be. If you want it to be nothing more than a cheering section for the LAX team where all posts are 100 percent favorable to the team and 100 percent hostile to Brodhead, and where you are free to say anything you want no matter how ludicrous without anyone ever holding you accountable for what you are saying, then I can understand why you would not want to hear any dissenting voices. However, if you want this site to be a place for the free exchange of ideas as part of a concerted effort to find the truth, then I would think that you would want dissenting voices to post on the site so you can hear what they have to say.
I have neither the time nor the technical expertise to create and maintain my own website, nor are there any documents to which I wish to link. However, when I see John make the ludicrous and false statement that President Brodhead wants to see the LAX players put on trial for gang rape and other felonies, and when I see him post a quote from Brodhead which supposedly supports this view but which in fact does not, and when I see his audience respond by patting him on the back and telling him what a great job he is doing with no critical comment whatsoever, I feel compelled to speak up and express my own views on the matter. What could possibly be more logical than for me to express my views in the comment section of the website that has made the false accusations?
anonynous,
To repeat from the 9/12/06 comments, it's hard to follow your arguments because you are one of many "anonymouses" who comments here. If you want your readers to understand what you're saying, make your points clearly. E.g. choose a pseudonym.
Here's the Brodhead quote JinC offered:
[W]e can't speak with certainty of matters that only the criminal justice system can resolve. We are eager for our students to be proved innocent. We share the wish for a speedy resolution of all the matters that are now in doubt.
I agree that this is not on its own a slam-dunk, but:
--How might "the criminal justice system prove our students innocent"? Well, Brodhead should know that it can't; odd turn of phrase. But "acquittal at trial" comes closest, in my opinion. What's the alternative?
--Brodhead has his own press secretary. Thus, he can, at will, remove all doubt by issuing a statement stating "I wish to see a trial," or "I don't think justice would be served by bringing this case to trial." He has not. Instead, the leader of Duke University is willing to leave the record at one poorly-phrased endorsement of a trial. Or, can you advance the discussion by pointing to additional statements on the matter that JinC has missed?
By the way, I have no connection with Duke or lacrosse. My interest in the rape hoax is in what it says about "system failures" of the print and broadcast media. And of higher education.
If a student in my University was accused of a felony, and had an ironclad alibi, and law enforcement refused to consider it, and there were gross violations of due process and thus of my students' right to a fair trial... I hope I wouldn't be too shy to state, "this case should be dismissed."
Amac,
I do not understand why you are having so much difficulty following my posts. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only person posting on this website who has said anything even remotely favorable about Brodhead during the last week or so, other than one guy who identified himself as a lawyer for the federal government, who made one post.
As for the rest of your comments, I have been through this already, and I really do not wish to repeat myself, but I guess I can make a couple of points very briefly.
First, your statement that the quote from Brodhead is not a slam dunk is putting it mildly to say the least. I am an attorney with more than 25 years of experience, and when I read that quote, all it says to me is that Brodhead looks forward to a speedy resolution of the case in which the LAX players are shown to be innocent. As I stated previously, this comment is very friendly to the LAX players, but John and others in his audience have tried to twist it and distort it in an attempt to make it sound dark and evil.
Second, your use of the words “on its own” suggests there are other documents out there that support the view that Brodhead wants to see the LAX players put on trial for gang rape and other felonies. If so, perhaps you could hyperlink to them. John stated in one of his posts that this was the quote he was relying on, so I took him at his word.
Third, as I stated previously, there are several ways in which the case could be resolved without a trial. For example, the accuser could admit that she lied about the rape; or the DA could come forward and state that he no longer believes the accuser and is dropping the charges; or the trial judge could dismiss the indictments before trial on the ground that there is not sufficient evidence of a rape and that the LAX players therefore should not have been indicted in the first place. Under all of these scenarios, there would be a speedy resolution of the case in which the LAX players were shown to be innocent.
Finally, there is no reason for Brodhead to come out and make public statements about the case just to negate the ludicrous accusations John has made on his website. The LAX players are represented by an army of lawyers who have done a great job representing their clients both in court and in the media. Brodhead has stated again and again in countless press conferences and newspaper, magazine, and television interviews that the LAX players are innocent until proven guilty and that we should allow the criminal justice system to uncover the facts and find the truth. Consistent with this, he has decided to get out of the way and let the lawyers do their jobs, and guess what, the criminal justice system has been uncovering the facts and finding the truth without any involvement by Brodhead. There is nothing dark or evil about any of this, and the fact that Brodhead has decided not to inject himself into the criminal proceedings does not mean that he wants to see the LAX players put on trial for gang rape.
anonymous 7:42am:
You wrote:
I do not understand why you are having so much difficulty following my posts.
What I have said is simple. To repeat: as the writer, you can easily keep track of your own words. But to make a series of comments as "anonymous" when most other commenters also post as "anonymous" makes it hard for anyone else to follow your reasoning. Why make life needlessly difficult for your audience?
When, here, you stay focused on-topic, you make a good point. I think JinC is, like the lacrosse families, bitter about President Brodhead's performance since March. That's an emotion that you don't share; as an outsider, neither do I--though unlike you, I find it both justified and unremarkable.
The August 28 New Yorker piece by Peter Boyer gets some things wrong, but provides a detailed and sympathetic view of Brodhead's response to the rape case crisis.
Quoting extensively from the just-cited KC Johnson post:
... Perhaps [Brodhead's] confusion–combined with his inability to resist [the faculty] –explains Brodhead’s disinclination to challenge false statements about the players that the district attorney made in late March and early April. The president... knew that the residents who lived in the house where the alleged incident took place... had voluntarily submitted to hours of questioning by the police with no lawyers present, had voluntarily provided DNA and other samples to the police, and had offered to take lie detector tests. In addition, top Duke officials knew that 46 members of the team had agreed to provide DNA and other evidence...
On March 24, the four team captains met with top university officials, told them what had and had not happened, and stated that they were cooperating with the investigation. The next day, March 25, the president released a statement urging “everyone to cooperate to the fullest with the police investigation”–even though he knew that the players had done just that. This was one of several statements from Brodhead and other Duke administrators signaling to the public that the team was not cooperating...
[On March 27,] the four team captains met with Brodhead to spell out in detail the extent of their cooperation with the police and to unequivocally proclaim their innocence. The president reportedly responded with discomfort during the meeting; and shortly after, he released a statement urging everyone to cooperate with the investigation. One week later, on April 5, Brodhead published an open letter “once again” asking everyone “to cooperate with the authorities.”
Brodhead’s repeated statements reinforced Nifong’s hyperbolic claims that the team refused to cooperate with the investigation. The public perception of a “wall of silence”–a perception reinforced by a president Boyer characterizes as “besieged” and “bewildered”–helped inflame the community against the entire team.
Brodhead could have informed the public that the players had, in fact, cooperated with the inquiry and that the D.A. was misleading the Durham community. Such remarks would not have in any way represented taking a position on the players’ guilt or innocence. Instead, he not only allowed Nifong’s misleading comments to pass without challenge, but actually issued statements implying that the D.A.’s concerns had merit.
[End KC Johnson quote]
Brodhead's subsequent reticence in the lacrosse rape case contrasts starkly with his earlier willingness to stand up for the grad student arrested in Armenia.
I agree that JinC's statement
"Saying that Brodhead wants to see the students put on trial is, as we can now agree, simply stating a fact." is over-the-top. Considering Brodhead's quoted statement (2:20am comment), his position as President, his pattern of action and inaction as laid out by Johnson, and the contrast with the Armenian case, it has too much truth to it to qualify as a falsehood. In my opinion.
Having read more in the course of responding to your remarks, my own characterization of Pres. Brodhead would run like this:
"When the case looked good for the prosecution, Brodhead made statements that buttressed the outright lies of the D.A., while remaining silent on the gross violations of due process that he was aware of. He abandoned the accused players to a criminal justice system that he know was gravely flawed. As Law Enforcement's conduct came into public view over the Spring and Summer, Brodhead first issued a bromide, then retreated into silence. That bromide--
"[W]e can't speak with certainty of matters that only the criminal justice system can resolve. We are eager for our students to be proved innocent. We share the wish for a speedy resolution of all the matters that are now in doubt."
--suggests that Brodhead was untroubled by the prospect of a meritless felony case proceeding to trial. It adds to the portrait of a leader whose priority is to placate his constituents, particularly the vocal faculty members who frame the rape charge in terms of its anti-athletics symbolism. President Brodhead seems to have forgotten that this case should center on the provision of due process and justice for the accuser and the accused--and not on politics, either academic or electoral."
I can't boil this down to a single sentence, but if I had to, it would end up looking somewhat like JinC's quip.
In closing, anonymous 7:42am states "As I stated previously, [Brodhead's] comment is very friendly to the LAX players." I've encountered much evidence that lacrosse players and their families feel abandoned, sandbagged, and betrayed by the Duke Administration, notions supported by the facts outlined by Johnson, quoted earlier--and others. anonymous 7:42am's opinion is that, were s/he a player, s/he would find the Brodhead bromide to be "friendly." Is there any evidence that any player or family member shares that sentiment? If not--why?
Brodhead has shown no leadership skills in this crisis. Instead of driving events, he has been driven by events from start to finish. His administration's internal communications are so poor that he had to find out about this incident from the student newspaper. Later, during a news conference, he learned that the DPD was at that moment raiding Edens 2C and blubbered out a lame answer in response to a reporter's question. Why does he continue to have to find out events on his own campus from public news sources?
His response to this crisis was the typical academic reaction. He did not take the lead and make decisions himself in a timely fashion so as to stay ahead of events and then take responsibility for those decisions. No, no, that would be taking a risk on his part. Instead he formed a committee, excuse me, formed five committees. This allows him to avoid taking personal responsibility for anything and gives him cover for his "decisions", because, after all, he's only following the committees' recomendation.
The one decision he did make was to destroy the lacrosse team and its Coach. Bob Steele, Chair of the Duke University Board of Trustees, admitted in the New Yorker article that they made that decision, not because it was the right and fair thing to do, no they made the decsion because they couldn't handle the image problem caused by allowing the lax team to continue to practice. Gutless, gutless, gutless.
Finally Brodhead has mastered the academic technique of talking/writing at length and saying absolutely nothing. This is self evident when you find people having to parse your words trying to determine what you said only to conclude you said nothing at all.
Terry Sanford weeps.
Amac,
In my opinion, your statement that John's comment about Brodhead wanting to see the LAX players put on trial for gang rape is "over-the-top" but that "it has too much truth to it to qualify as a falsehood" is nothing but a weak attempt to help John weasel out of responsibility for the false statements he has made. This is the same kind of equivocation we have been getting from Melanie Sill which has been driving everyone crazy.
anonymous 2:26pm:
your statement... is nothing but a weak attempt to help John weasel out of responsibility for the false statements he has made.
1. My statements reflect my thoughts. They might 'help' you, or JinC, or nobody at all.
2. Your method of argumentation includes annoying tics; some noted earlier. If you're a lawyer with 25 years' experience, you will have heard that already.
3. Getting beyond that, you may have noticed that I agree at least partly with some of the points you've made.
If, after reading our comments, readers think I'm a weaselly John-helper--that's fine.
Amac,
You should try to lose the victim pose that permeates your last comment.
anonymous 12:30am/anonymous 7:42am/anonymous 2:26pm:
You obtusely wrote at 7:42am that "I do not understand why you are having so much difficulty following my posts."
Please note the "anonymomous" comment posted immediately prior, at 9:17pm: "Amac, You should try to lose the victim pose that permeates your last comment."
You know whether this anonymous comment is the latest in your series, or if it is a third party dropping by to troll. But nobody else does.
If, after reading this comment, readers think it is me that is displaying the pose of a victim--that's fine.
Added on 10/5/06, well after this post was written:
On the basis of reading a new Duke alumni statement discussed by K.C. Johnson today, I would modify some of the comments I made above.
I withdraw my dissent from "John in Carolina's" assertion that President Brodhead wants to see the three indicted men brought to trial.
The Duke-Administration-sanctioned talking points refer to the trial as the procedure that will clarify the situation for all concerned, and states that discussion of any procedural irregularities really can't be fruitful in a pretrial environment.
There doesn't seem to be a plausible reading of the talking points that isn't in accord with JinC's interpretation of President Brodhead's desires.
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