A Rare Smile About President Brodhead

With one exception, I can’t think of anything Duke’s President Richard Brodhead’s said or done that’s caused me to smile.

The exception occurred in Oct. 2006 on 60 Minutes when Brodhead attempted to excuse himself for his disgraceful actions and inactions in response to Mangum's and Nifiong’s lies and the terrible events they set in motion.

Remember Brodhead's whiny explanation to Bradley that he found himself in a confusing time in which “the facts kept changing?”

Could you do anything but smile, even laugh?

And until today I can’t think of anything anyone's said or written about Brodhead, supportive or critical, that’s caused me to smile.

But today when I visited Liestoppers Meeting I saw where abb had pasted in my post of yesterday In Ekstrand Suit, Court Consolidates Motions To Dismiss. (Thanks, abb)

Then further down the comment thread I saw that a commenter, Payback, had replicated part of my post and added his comment which made me smile. I hope it makes you smile, too.

The portion of my post is in italics; Payback’s comment’s in plain and bold.

If you’ve read attorney Ekstrand’s original and amended filings, you know he’s presented the court with an extraordinary amount of information regarding actions and inactions of the defendants.

The information is from witnesses and documents that directly refute claims made by various defendants to justify their actions and/or inactions.

For example, defendant Richard Brodhead, Duke president, claimed the Duke University Police Department had no authority to investigate the charges of false accuser Crystal Mangum; the authority rested with the Durham Police, Brodhead stated.

Ekstrand has provided the court with a copy of an agreement signed by representatives of Duke University and Durham City that directly contradicts what Brodhead claimed. The agreement was in force at the time Mangum made her false charges.

It sounds almost as if Ekstrand thinks that Richard Brodhead lied about something. Is it possible?