Thursday, October 12, 2006

There’s plenty at the blogs today

Johnsville News publishes a copy of the letter defense attorney’s have written DA Nifong asking him to turn over records regarding meetings he had with the accuser. The letter details contradictory statements Nifong has made in court and to the press. Don’t look for it to appear on Nifong’s campaign website.

JN also has a tongue in cheek "complaint" about our Durham-in-Wonderland neighbor KC Johnson keeping us all up at night. JN says:

K.C. Johnson is going to force the residents of Johnsville to start missing their bed time if he keeps dropping his big hoax-busting bombs at his Wonderland blog after the stroke of midnight.
Here’s an example of why people are staying up for KC’s hoax-busters: some excerpts from KC's latest post exposing details of Nifong’s campaign finances:
For instance, here’s [criminal defense lawyer]John Bourlon dismissing allegations that Nifong moved forward with a weak case: “I’m convinced he has something,” Bourlon told the Associated Press. Since North Carolina has an Open Discovery law, Bourlon seemed to imply that Nifong had held something back, thereby flouting the law.

The AP article described Bourlon in the following way: “The criminal defense lawyer has faced off against Nifong hundreds of times over the past three decades.” Bourlon apparently “forgot” to mention his vested interest in the outcome of the race: on February 19, he donated $1000 to the Nifong re-election effort—the second largest individual contribution that Nifong received for the primary campaign.

[The AP added that Bourlon has “seen the prosecutor drop a weak case the day before trial.” That comment begs the question of why Nifong would wait so long to drop a weak case. And does he have a pattern of filing weak cases?]
KC isn’t just dropping Duke hoax-busters.

He’s also dropping MSM hoax-busters; in this case exposing the hoax that “we in MSM, especially we at the AP, give you the news.”

If the AP gave us the news, than it would have reported what KC reported: Bourlon was a big Nifong campaign contributor.

The AP and KC just gave readers another reason for reading those blogs.

Liestoppers has an excellent post detailing some of the extensive cooperation the lacrosse players provided police. Liestoppers makes a point I’ve made here often: the “wall of silence” was, from day one, a falsehood that misled the public and did enormous harm to the players.

A few weeks ago William Anderson wrote another of his fine columns on the Hoax. I meant to call it to your attention. If you missed it, I hope you’ll give it a look now.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please view the 60 Minutes lead on the Duke story at CBS' website

Anonymous said...

First, I apologize for this slightly impersonal note. I'm Dick Meyer, the editorial director at CBSNews.com. I'm writing because you've written about the Duke lacrosse case in the past so I think you'll be very interested in the stories that will be running on 60 Minutes this weekend and the extra material that will be posted on them on CBSNews.com. Whatever your take on the story, whatever your take on us here at CBS News, this story is the first time you'll be able to hear some the principals speak for themselves.

The section for 60 Minutes is: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml.

If we can help, let us know. Thanks much.

JWM said...

Anon @ 2:10 PM,

Thanks for the heads up.

See my post: "60 Minutes: Six sure bets."

Anon @ 2:24 PM

No apology necessary.

I hope you get it right Sunday night.

I think you will.

Thanks to both Anons.

John

Anonymous said...

Bourlon is a scumbag, scumbag asshole