This is the interview that's been in the news — see "Jann Wenner’s Rock Hall Reign Lasted Years. It Ended in 20 Minutes. The day after the Rolling Stone co-founder made remarks widely criticized as racist and sexist in a Times interview, the Hall of Fame called an emergency vote and ousted him" — and that we've talked about already, but I'm calling attention to something I haven't seen discussed yet.
Here's the remark I've quoted in context. The interviewer, David Marchese, is in boldface. The rest is Wenner. I've put the above-quoted remark in red:
Rolling Stone had a history of producing certain kinds of stories that ended up being definitive. But there were a handful of stories that raised questions of integrity. The U.Va. campus rape story would be one of those. Even Hunter S. Thompson — I don’t know that anyone would hold him up as a beacon of factual accuracy, regardless of the literary merit of his stories. Was there anything endemic to Rolling Stone that caused you to put the pursuit of the juicy story ahead of concerns with accuracy?
One word answer: no.
Is it just one-offs?
The University of Virginia story was not a failure of intent, or an attempt to be loose with the facts. You get beyond the factual errors that sank that story, and it was really about the issue of rape and how it affects women on campus, their lack of rights. Other than this one key fact that the rape described actually was a fabrication of this woman, the rest of the story was bulletproof. It wasn’t for recklessness. I mean, we made one of those errors — every publication in the country, including The Times, makes every 50 years at least. You get slammed for it. We took our beating. But it wasn’t indicative of how we operated. It wasn’t an error of being casual with the truth, or trying to stretch it, or mission creep, or anything like that.
Hunter, well, you know, sui generis. Hunter, in fact, was as accurate a reporter as I’ve ever had, but it’s just that his stories went beyond facts, into areas of the truth and spirituality and pharmacology that none of us are really able to judge on our own. My mission always, journalistically speaking, was the truth is the most important thing. As we all know now, if somebody really wants to hoax you, there’s very little you can do about it. Except have the kind of hypervigilance that would mean you could probably publish nothing.
So almost a decade later, there are no lessons that you drew from that experience? In your mind, it’s just wrong place, wrong time? That seems like sort of a glib response.
There are two main things in the story. One was the account of this gang rape given to us by this source, Jackie. That turned out to be a fabrication. Because we didn’t want to identify her, we didn’t demand to meet people to corroborate her story. Our mistake was to let her out of that demand, not wanting to put her through the trauma again. That was one story that ran through the long piece. The other story, having nothing to do with Jackie, was about the handling of rape on that campus by other people — handling rape in general across the country. It was a conscientious, serious attempt to do that issue, and that was like the third piece by that particular individual on sex crimes and one of our second or third pieces about campus rape. So then the hoax was discovered and we lived with the consequence of that. It was one of the most miserable professional experiences I’ve ever had. I don’t mean to be glib about it, but I don’t feel wholly to blame for this, or that it’s some terrible black mark. I think the lesson I learned is, yes, it does happen to everybody. The other thing is, of course, we could have been tighter. So, you know, there’s a series of circumstances. I can’t pull out the hara-kiri knife for that one.
CORRECTION: The intro to the interview is by Ben Sisario, but the interview itself, the boldface text, is by David Marchese.
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70 comments:
All they had to do was contact any of the three friends Jackie met that night. Not only did RS not do that, the article made it seem like they did. They had one source for the entire piece - Jackie. They made no journalistic attempt at all.
Did Rolling Stone get sued for defamation? Did Wenner?
This story didn't help rape victims. It harmed them. And this deviant is still justifying his participation in a lynch mob.
Well, that clears that up.
As we all know now, if somebody really wants to hoax you, there’s very little you can do about it
Everyone is forced to make decisions, often important decisions, based on imperfect information. Sometimes the imperfection is deliberate, a created deception from people with agendas. We have words for it- charm, con, swindle, trick. So in a way Wenner is correct- sometimes you get duped.
But why the fuck do we continue to forgive the same people, over and over, who are deceived in the same way, by the same people, over and over?
No different than "fake but accurate", or any of the now countless narrative stories not just from Rolling Stones but most of the media.
“…yes, we could have been tighter.” What arrogance. What a joke of a conscience he has. What a pathetic excuse for a professional “journalist.”
He and his crackerjack crew destroyed people’s lives with that story, and this is the lesson he offers us? “We could have been tighter”?
The rest of the story was bulletproof?
Seriously? Rolling Stone asserted that the fraternity's pledges were required to participate in a gang rape in order to ascend to full membership in the club. Otherwise, you get blackballed.
Does this guy really think that such a practice could exist amongst a collection of hundreds of young men at a college, over the course of a few years, and be unverifiable? No one would say a word about it, not even one of the guys who got blackballed?
That is ludicrous. To assert that, without evidence, is reckless. (I'm using the phrase, 'without evidence,' in its literal, non-MSM meaning.)
I was in a college fraternity. The stuff they keep secrets about is meaningless ritual stuff. Its lack of meaning is how it remains, more or less, secret. No one is interested in finding out. If it mattered, it would get out.
Obviously, a requirement to participate in a gang rape, a real 'rapey' rape, would not be a meaningless secret, and would not be a secret for more than a few days. Raping a girl on a glass table, so violently that the glass shattered. If that story doesn't get your journalistic skepticism buzzing, you are beyond redemption.
And that's Jan Wenner's bulletproof Rolling Stone.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Wenner doesn't seem to understand (refuses to admit) how a mistake like that undermines everything. He set back his cause because he let his staff consciously choose to skip fact checking a sensitive issue.
Tim maguire stole my comment!
Hunter,...went beyond facts, into areas of...spirituality,...that none of us are really able to judge on our own."
Wanna bet? This is why it's easy to despise these people,...
Other than this one key fact that the rape described actually was a fabrication of this woman, the rest of the story was bulletproof.
Reminds me of Maxwell Smart: “Missed it by that much.”
Part of their malfeasance was that Jackie's story was very similar to an actual rape that occurred decades before at the same fraternity. Just a little digging would have shown that her story was eerily close to that actual rape (and that one was a story in itself). So many things that were ignored relying on a single source to nationally tarnish a lot of people and institutions. This story did set back attempts to get people to view date rape on campus as a big problem. same with the Duke Lacrosse scandal. When your two best indictments of campus date rape turn out to be total fabrications it's an indication that the problem isn't as big as advertised, or at least that false accusations are too real and too common.
Props to the interviewer for asking about the UVa rape story, and then pushing him on his glib denials.
The story smelled of elderberries from the beginning. I'm not psychic and I knew it was BS---same with the Duke lacrosse gang-rape story. I hung around in fraternities a LOT when I was at Penn State and am not naive about the fact that there's always a potential for sexual assault and rape in a house full of horny guys. But gang-rape is not believable as an initiation requirement, period.
And there was never any follow-up to the UVa story in terms of the damage done by the fake story. What a story that would have been! Did the fraternity ever open again? Were the guys who lived in the house and were kicked out in the middle of the term ever monetarily compensated for that? Were any of the brothers penalized by friends/family/job opportunities as a result of the false charges? Did the administration bear any costs for accepting the Rolling Stone article as evidence enough to sanction the fraternity?
As a consumer of media, I look for sourcing. If it is weak, I pay little heed to the "story"
Come on people. This is not rare, its been going on since at least the Viet Nam war. Stories written to advance a narrative. Facts be dammed.
Read the story, judge the sourcing.
I see the past leader of New Zealand was at the UN demanding the concept of free speech be abandoned. Things like climate change are too important, to allow debate.
Wenner sounds like george w bush with that line of argument.
“ My mission always, journalistically speaking, was the truth is the most important thing.”
No, Jann, your preferred narrative is the most important thing.
Narrative has replaced the truth in so many aspects of our lives and it is destroying us.
And his reason for not checking with her friends was that he didn't want to traumatize her again. What?
The rest of the story went through a filter that assumed that the story was accurate. Subtract that, and it doesn't seem quite so unreasonable that the school et al was proceeding cautiously.
So he got canned by the Hall of Fame for saying the woman's story was un-true? A statement which, by now, is known to be true?
I feel like I'm missing something here.
Thanks for highlighting the full exchange. I think it shows how warped journalism has become. The rest of the story supports The Narrative therefore it's solid. Jackie's story supporting The Narrative might be false, but The Narrative still reigns.
Again briefing the person from Mars. Winner was one of the leading advocates of a sexual revolution that encouraged cis men--let's face it, mostly white cis men--to just do it, enjoy their freedom. Lo and behold, women find themselves feeling used and hurt. They may not actually like a nihilistic universe as much as men do. It's no longer enough for a man to recite a mantra--you're gonna be free too, baby--as he does what he wants.
Wenner joins a campaign to have a new erection--the erection of a pseudo-legal structure, awkwardly co-existing with hook-up culture, to protect women.
Heckuva job, boomers. Never has a generation had so many opportunities to learn. Generally speaking, we have not succeeded. We have been led by self-absorbed pricks. It looks like the young won't stand for another Boomer Pres. Good for them, but the pickings are still too thin. I won't read Marty Peretz's book, but he's a guy older than the boomers who couldn't believe his good fortune. So much pussy. His political commitments are variable except for Israel. Sounding like you're on the left is a way to get women.
Journalism is no longer about facts. It's about context. He doesn't care that facts were absent. They were doing a series about rape on campus; gang rape was an assumed component. Without Jackie's fiction, their context was incomplete.
Blogger tim maguire said...
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
...
9/20/23, 6:34 AM
Beat me to that. +1
Let's not forget the Julie Swetnick gang rape parties. I'm sure RS would have been all over that story. That story rivaled the child day care magic clown, balloon ride stories from the late 1980s. Stories created out of whole cloth by detectives and child psychologists who just knew that the children were being abused. After all, they were too happy.
I believe the expression is, “Too good to check.” That “big story” was Sabrina Erdely’s concoction. She needed it to be true, so of course she didn’t test the claims by “Jackie” —5 minutes’ hard questioning would have sufficed. (Example: “Jackie” claimed she had been gang-raped while lying on shards of glass from a broken coffee table. But she had no cuts on her body? Really?). So it was a conspiracy of weak-minded wish-casters: “Jackie” wanted attention so she duped Erdely, Erdely wanted a Pulitzer so she duped Wenner, Wenner wanted a sensational issue for his rag so he duped the public.
Result: major disgrace, ruined reputations for UVA, its Dean, the fraternity in question (and by easy extension all fraternities), Rolling Stone, Wenner, Erdely, “Jackie,” and journalism as a whole. Rolling Stone paid out millions in damages for defamation and probably millions more for legal expenses. IIRC the fiasco broke the magazine financially. But for Wenner it’s just “We could have been tighter.”
The disgusting thing about this imbroglio is not Jann Wenner and not his disgusting magazine, it's the fact that he's being pilloried for his opinions about completely subjective notions, the rock 'n roll merits of this well-known musician versus that well-known musician (There's a logical fallacy at play here, but let that slide.) and not his malice and mendacity directed at a collection of young men he didn't know from Adam in service of promulgating a myth.
There is a key insight here. The Leftists at Rolling Stone wanted it to be true, yes. But the actual Truth did not matter as much as The Good, which was addressing the supposed epidemic of misogynistic campus date rape. Wenner still believes that the Good outweighs the Truth. That's why they ignored they obvious flaws in the story and, critically, made literally no attempt to confirm it. That's why, to him, it's just a "mistake" and no reason to question the process or the integrity of the paper.
This quote is illuminating: "his [the journalist's] stories went beyond facts, into areas of the truth and spirituality and pharmacology that none of us are really able to judge on our own."
To the Conservative, the Truth will lead us to the Good.
To the Leftist, the Good is already known, and the Truth can be bent in service to the Good.
Wenner has now been cancelled. Interesting to note that he wasn't cancelled for the totally incompetent reporting on the rape story but rather for his remarks about how women and Blacks articulate their understanding of music....I think the larger problem is that Wenner is incapable of articulating how his biases shape and distort his understanding of current events. I wish the reporter had chosen a more articulate spokesperson at Rolling Stone to explain that company's philosophy of journalism. But even larger than the larger problem is that the NYT reporter himself, like Wenner, is even aware that his biases infect his narrative.....The Rolling Stone was the voice of the boomer generation. They got a lot things wrong besides that rape story. There is no Venn intersection of truth and pharmacology. They are always separate and frequently opposing substances....Wenner offered an apology for his remarks about women and Blacks that was a model of grovel speak. Totally abject. But he's still proud of the far more malicious reporting on those frat students....I guess someday they'll welcome him back into the fold and even if they don't, he's old and rich and can take comfort that he got away with it for most of his life.
Wenner and Rolling Stone became irrelevant years ago — other than as historical relics. Good riddance.
So, it’s kinda like that Smollett guy…no white man tied a noose around his neck, but otherwise the story is rock solid.
We've got a theme going the past two days. Add "Jackie" to the list of young, female, Salem Witch Trial accusers. Rolling Stone would have hung the Frat boys being accused by Jackie.
"Well even though they weren't witches, the rest of the case was air tight."
There has to be a balance. Rape is real and deserves severe punishment. But so do false accusations that wreck people's lives. That's why "innocent until proven guilty" is so important. But...that basic principle is being thrown out the window along with free speech.
I mean, we made one of those errors — every publication in the country, including The Times, makes every 50 years at least
True statement but if we Clintonparse, error means deliberate fabrication and every 50 years at least means at least 50 times a year…
Blogger tim maguire said...
He set back his cause because he let his staff consciously choose to skip fact checking a sensitive issue.
What exactly was Wenner's "cause"? Was he trying to help rape victims or crucify white frat boys?
Same thing with the Duke Lacrosse team and the 80 professors that signed that stupid letter. We're they trying to help a rape victim, or virtue signal and vilify white boys they despised.
"So he got canned by the Hall of Fame for saying the woman's story was un-true? A statement which, by now, is known to be true?"
No, he got canned by the Hall of Fame for saying none of the women of rock or black people of rock were articulate and intelligent enough to belong in his book of interviews, "The Masters," which includes ONLY white male rock stars.
"not wanting to put her through the trauma again"
Except the only trauma was the kind caused by the lying accuser and her journalistic enablers.
Except for the lie, the story was bulletproof, cuz everybody knows for a fact raaccist white frat boys are rapists.
"Hunter, in fact, was as accurate a reporter as I’ve ever had, but it’s just that his stories went beyond facts..."
That is as good a summation of modern "journalism" as you will ever find. Going "beyond facts" is what the entire enterprise is all about; indeed, it is about very little else.
The MSM did not do itself proud, which has become routine. Wenner is simply the pus-filled head on the boil afflicting America’s collective buttocks. Reality has been a stranger to him for well over half a century.
"Other than this one key fact that the rape described actually was a fabrication of this woman, the rest of the story was bulletproof."
This statement is just more Wenner bullsh|t.
The rest of the RS story was about the allegation that, once raped, girls on campus have no rights. The story went into great detail slandering Nicole Eramo, the person at UVA charged with administering their stupid rape process designed to deprive men of their Constitutional rights. This is the central idea of the story, that Eramo and the University fail the raped people.
Except that was all a LIE. Eramo sued Rolling Stone for libel and slander on this specific allegation. She won her case before a jury and that jury awarded her $3 million dollars.
Everything Jann Wenner says is a LIE. Any person who is actually raped on the UVA campus or anywhere else in society is NOT deprived of her rights. Such a person has the right to call the police and report her rape. The police WILL investigate that allegation. They may investigate the girl if it's determined she's lying. Many women LIE about their alleged rapes, costing valuable police time and slandering innocent people in the process.
Women: IF you lie about being raped then you are slandering a person. That is illegal and you can be sued if you do it. You can also be arrested for lying to the police. There is no @BelieveAllWomen. That's Democrat Party bullsh|t they use to advance their fake narratives in the pursuit of their power. Don't fall for this or you will suffer the consequences.
As we all know now, if somebody really wants to hoax you, there’s very little you can do about it.
More Wenner bullsh|t.
There's a LOT you can do about it. If someone tries to hoax you with their fake rape story, you could oh, I dunno ... maybe ask the alleged rapist if they have an alibi. You can talk to the friends the raped person claims she talked to. Maybe you can detect holes in her story, since MANY TIMES women will be lying about rape. That happens all the time.
And you might conclude there's a high probability that you're being hoaxed by someone with an ax to grind. So then what you can do is not print their bullsh|t fake rape story.
This happens ALL THE TIME in journalism. Many, many, many stories are NEVER PRINTED because the person is trying to hoax the journalist and get the journalist to wield the ax they are griding. Those stories get sh|t-canned.
Wenner and his unethical ilk run rampant in the halls of today's media. Removing this whackjob from the Rock and Roll Hall of Idiots isn't going to change much. You should be skeptical of everything you read in the newspaper, including the comics and the crossword puzzle.
Fact-checking their sources is too "traumatic", but he can't think of anything they need to improve on.
I occasionally find my perusals taking me to a Rolling Stones “Top 500 …” list of rock ‘n’ roll this or that. I’ve always noticed the top ten seem tainted by political correctness. So I really had to wonder, why would Wenner NOT do the same for his book, as he admitted would’ve saved him grief.
Here’s why: he wanted for once to just tell it like he really saw it. It makes me wonder how many in the mainstream media are yearning to do that as well. I recall Frank Reynolds of ABC news (I think it was him, might’ve been a different Reynolds) saying darkly of Obama back in 2008 as he was dismissed from ABC something like, “You‘ll find out about Obama soon enough.” And there’s Michelle Tafoya and Sage Steele, two escapees from the narrative plantation. I have a feeling a lot of them hate the narrative demands they labor under constantly.
The rest of the story went through a filter that assumed that the story was accurate. Subtract that, and it doesn't seem quite so unreasonable that the school et al was proceeding cautiously.
I'm trying to figure out whether this is a comment in good faith, or sarcasm.
Sure, if you assume that the story is true and accurate, then your ex post facto filter isn't going to work all that well. If you assume that the Earth was created in 4004 BC, then your conclusions about fossils and radioactive isotopes are going to differ pretty radically from any conclusions you might reach if you don't go in with that assumption.
Or, to take a more recent example, if you assume an election was the "most free and fair in history," you may conclude that anyone questioning that statement is, say, a would-be insurrectionist who, by the way, doesn't have standing to force an audit of that self-evidently free and fair election because no one could have that standing.
Or, to take a more salient example, if you go in with the attitude that only white men in rock think deep thoughts and can articulate them effectively, then the articulated thoughts of women and black people in rock are going to seem shallow and inarticulate to you, by definition.
I know it's not necessarily true that because a person shows a tendency to reason from his conclusions in one area, he's going to treat every topic in such a cavalier manner, but...
Wenner, Hunter S. Thompson, Hugh Heffner, Harvey Weinstein, Roman Polanski and their friends exemplified the 20th century sex and drugs and rock & roll entertainment culture. These folks made their own beds and must lie it -- they are directly responsible for the rejection of hedonism and the rise of the Woke religion. But, they did all they could to destroy public morality to enjoy the here and now.
---
Wenner has become a silly old man and should keep his mouth shut. All politicians over 70 need to go away.
"The story was right except for the key premise."
"I was right about election fraud except for the fraud part."
"I was right about discrimination except it never happened."
"I was right about kids in cages being evil with Trump but not Biden or Obama."
"I was right about whipping immigrants despite never riding a horse or understanding."
The University of Virginia story was not a failure of intent
SO TRUE! of course, the intent was to fabricate lies about white boys. It succeeded in that!
"if somebody really wants to hoax you, there’s very little you can do about it"
"we didn’t...corroborate her story"
The Jackie story was so preposterous that it should have been obvious hat it was fabricated. Like Jussie Smollett and the Russia-Gate memo. The big problem with the Russia-Gate memo is that nobody bothered to actually read it. Everyone has read countless stories about the memo but how many people actually sat down and read the damn thing? It is transparently bullshit and written in the voice of a horny 15 year old boy. Anyone that was "tricked" by the pee memo was complicit in their own deception.
Politicians have operated on plausible deniability forever. Now, the media has perfected the art of "plausible believability." If something is plausibility believable, and it serves the correct narrative, then you print it. If it turns out to be bullshit you throw up your hands and cry that you were "tricked again."
Boomers sometimes created and fought straw "Nazis" in an effort to live up to the legacy of their parents generation. It seems subsequent generations have picked up that torch and become pyromaniacs.
Legacy Media: We didn't investigate the Hunter Biden laptop story because so many people told us it was Russian Disinformation and we did not want to traumatize all those people any further.
Is Rolling Stone still around? God, I stopped reading that crapola about 40 years ago.
New Release: "On The Cover of the Rolling Stone" by the Boston Bomber. "Gonna send five copies to my victims..."
MarcusB THEOLDMAN
You know if Wenner had just kept his mouth shut and said, these selection are just my personal opinion and not gone further, he would have a defense.
Other than this one key fact that the rape described actually was a fabrication of this woman, the rest of the story was bulletproof.
A jury found that Associate Dean Eramo was defamed with actual malice and awarded her a tidy $3 million, and Rolling Stone was forced to settle out of court for another $1.65 million. Maybe another zero on each award would have awakened Wenner to the fact that his story was shot full of holes and not at all bulletproof.
Believe all women? Believe no women without a lot of checking and independent confirmation.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"So he got canned by the Hall of Fame for saying the woman's story was un-true? A statement which, by now, is known to be true?"
No, he got canned by the Hall of Fame for saying none of the women of rock or black people of rock were articulate and intelligent enough to belong in his book of interviews, "The Masters," which includes ONLY white male rock stars.
9/20/23, 8:04 AM
Jann Wenner's Hall of Fame book is just the culmination of his history of fake stories. "Fake but accurate" to quote Dan Rather. All Wenner wanted was sensational stories to sell copies of Rolling Stone. The hell with the victims of his stories. His bias against the truth finally unpersoned him with his book.
He couldn't have included such people as Smokey Robinson, Janis Joplin, Jackson Brown, Ann and Nancy Wilson, or Debbie Harry? Just to name a few.
Kind of an important detail though, no? I mean, the most important I would say.
I was in a college fraternity. The stuff they keep secrets about is meaningless ritual stuff.
"Thank you, sir; may I have another?"
Great comments. I hope Ann (maybe with Meade's help?) can distill the content of the comments (debunking Wenner to the nth degree) and the spirit of them (mockery at best, incandescent outrage at worst and withering contempt throughout). Such a distillation will require elaborate hazmat gear, heavy shielding from hard radiation and a BL 4 safety certification, but it should be worth it: the resulting "critical mass" could fuel humanity's energy requirements for centuries to come.
Blogger Ann Althouse said..
"He got canned by the Hall of Fame for saying none of the women of rock or black people of rock were articulate and intelligent enough to belong in his book of interviews, "The Masters," which includes ONLY white male rock stars."
That is a clear legacy of slavery in America. An obvious one. We are NOT free-and-clear of all that in the USA. The Hall of Fame had to call an "Emergency Meeting" to try and "Get Back" again to "It's Only Rock 'N' Roll (But I Like It)" from white people stole that shit (and you know it).
Signed,
Someone too inarticulate to matter without an institution's defense
You left out the part that immediately followed and segued into the question that triggered his self-cancellation:
To go back to the book now, in the introduction to the book ——
Am I let off the hook, David? Am I forgiven?
That’s not for me to decide.
History will speak.
History will speak. This is also a history-will-speak kind of question. There are seven subjects in the new book; seven white guys. In the introduction, you acknowledge that performers of color and women performers are just not in your zeitgeist. Which to my mind is not plausible for Jann Wenner. Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Stevie Wonder, the list keeps going — not in your zeitgeist? What do you think is the deeper explanation for why you interviewed the subjects you interviewed and not other subjects?
'Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?'
Exactly.
A handmade tale. A literary meritocracy. Award winning, even, with forward-looking collateral damage.
none of the women of rock or black people of rock were articulate and intelligent enough to belong in his book of interviews
Also, no brown persons, or people of yellow, and definitely no whites (i.e. albino or integrated rainbow color).
"I mean, we made one of those errors — every publication in the country, including The Times, makes every 50 years at least."
Amusing. I guess the "at least" at the end of that sentence makes it slightly less ridiculous.
Actually, the entire story was flawed not just because the UVA horror story proved to be a hoax but also because SRE failed to produce evidence to support the premise that rape is an ubiquitous problem on elite college campuses. SRE was quite clear that this was the intent of the story. To prove her point she made a tour of elite colleges, starting at Harvard and moving down the I95 corridor to, I believe, Yale, Brown, Princeton, Penn and perhaps a few others. (She skipped Columbia, where “Mattress Girl” had laid claim to the dubious rape story franchise). She made it all the way to Virginia before she found a suitable rape story, and that was a hoax. If one was interested in evidence the fact that one could not find any traveling through half a dozen or more colleges in as many states might make you rethink your premise but SRE and RS went ahead and got burned.
We've had years, years of fraudulent rape accusations. ALL of them believed beyond the point of absurdity by the Left.
UVA Fraternity rape
Duke Lacrosse rape hoax
Columbia "Mattress Girl"
Christine Blasey-Ford*
E.Jean Carroll*
And these are just the most prominent ones that come to mind.
Libs believe(d) every one. Shame on you.
*Anyone who believes a story told years afterward, without specific, verifiable dates and places, deserves eternal shame.
But, sure, go ahead and tell me "women don't like about rape".
They do lie, a lot.
The story was as bulletproof as the glass table Jackie wasn't raped on.
I was in a large, prominent fraternity at a big state university in the early to mid 80's when campus Greek culture may have reached its high-water mark. There were lots of things going on that ranged from ill-advised to illegal, primarily promiscuous sex, marijuana, cocaine, and a staggering amount of underage drinking, but nothing out of the ordinary for average college students of that era. I never, ever heard of anything remotely like a gang rape in the fraternity system. (That was confined to the athletes' dorm and one of the most unsavory off-campus apartment complexes.) We were required to maintain a GPA considerably above the campus average, and some of my fraternity brothers are exceedingly accomplished middle-aged men these days, quite outstanding in their fields.
In those days we did indeed supply alcohol to attractive young women who were a birthday or three short of being able to drink it legally, but they were never less than wildly enthusiastic about attending our parties and drinking more free booze than was good for them. If any of them ever regretted any of the actions they took with our brothers afterwards, they did not show any sign of it when they returned for more the following weekend, and the weekend after that, and so on for several years.
Our "Hell Week" initiation involved mostly pushups and a lack of sleep and memorizing three or four arcane mottos and passwords in the Ancient Greek language. Also a curious secret handshake that I still remember, although the passwords have been forgotten. No outsiders were allowed through the doors the entire time (four days rather than a full week.) There was no sex with anyone or anything, although at one point we had to stand at attention for twenty minutes or so in our gym shorts while some remarkably dirty movies were shown. We were threatened that anyone showing physical evidence of having enjoyed the movie would be forced to commit a most unnatural act, but the "sheep" bleating in the next room sounded suspiciously like our assistant pledge-master. Happily we all passed the test, or at least never had to suffer the purported consequences for failure. There was one swat on the buttocks with a paddle that stung a bit, but that was the worst of it. I've committed more serious offenses on a dirty weekend in Las Vegas.
UVA Fraternity rape
Duke Lacrosse rape hoax
Columbia "Mattress Girl"
Christine Blasey-Ford*
E.Jean Carroll*
*Benfords Law
*Tara Reede
*Hunter fucked his niece (not saying he isn't scum -- just saying there is no evidence for this one)
*Obama is secretly gay
Is it plausibly believable? Does it serve a narrative? If yes and yes, then believe it.
Nobody is asking for hari-kari, or as it is now called, seppuku.
First, he is not a samurai, and is not entitled to do that act as an absolution of guilt.
Second, we just want absence of his presence.
A very good blog post by Althouse.
And a good comment by Tim Maguire (6:34am), seconded by Dave Begley.
So, Dave Begley; together, we see and agree that Rolling Stone squandered all kinds of credibility capital on a hopelessly and inexcusably flawed story. But Dave can you see how the Republican Party similarly has squandered its political capital in the era of Trump? One fake story after another. Unprovable, crazy allegations and promises. Provably false lies.
Why be so hard on Rolling Stone on one story (where I agree with you, to be sure!) and then go so pathetically weak on daily, weekly, monthly Trump monstrosities?
I realize, Begley, that you're not a Trump hard-liner. You're sorta hoping for Vivek, or maybe DeSantis. Tim Scott, perhaps. Nikki Haley, in a pinch.
But you're not gonna get any of them. You're gonna get Trump. A monumentally worse truth-teller than Rolling Stone on Jann Wenner's worst day. And so then what are you going to do with Trump and all his lies?
A very good blog post by Althouse.
And a good comment by Tim Maguire (6:34am), seconded by Dave Begley.
So, Dave Begley; together, we see and agree that Rolling Stone squandered all kinds of credibility capital on a hopelessly and inexcusably flawed story. But Dave can you see how the Republican Party similarly has squandered its political capital in the era of Trump? One fake story after another. Unprovable, crazy allegations and promises. Provably false lies.
Why be so hard on Rolling Stone on one story (where I agree with you, to be sure!) and then go so pathetically weak on daily, weekly, monthly Trump monstrosities?
I realize, Begley, that you're not a Trump hard-liner. You're sorta hoping for Vivek, or maybe DeSantis. Tim Scott, perhaps. Nikki Haley, in a pinch.
But you're not gonna get any of them. You're gonna get Trump. A monumentally worse truth-teller than Rolling Stone on Jann Wenner's worst day. And so then what are you going to do with Trump and all his lies?
A very good blog post by Althouse.
And a good comment by Tim Maguire (6:34am), seconded by Dave Begley.
So, Dave Begley; together, we see and agree that Rolling Stone squandered all kinds of credibility capital on a hopelessly and inexcusably flawed story. But Dave can you see how the Republican Party similarly has squandered its political capital in the era of Trump? One fake story after another. Unprovable, crazy allegations and promises. Provably false lies.
Why be so hard on Rolling Stone on one story (where I agree with you, to be sure!) and then go so pathetically weak on daily, weekly, monthly Trump monstrosities?
I realize, Begley, that you're not a Trump hard-liner. You're sorta hoping for Vivek, or maybe DeSantis. Tim Scott, perhaps. Nikki Haley, in a pinch.
But you're not gonna get any of them. You're gonna get Trump. A monumentally worse truth-teller than Rolling Stone on Jann Wenner's worst day. And so then what are you going to do with Trump and all his lies?
@D. D. Driver, may I ask what is your complaint with Bentord’s Law?
Crack said:
"The Hall of Fame had to call an "Emergency Meeting" to try and "Get Back" again to "It's Only Rock 'N' Roll (But I Like It)" from white people stole that shit (and you know it)."
*********
Yeah, Crack: if Eric Clapton hadn't stolen "Crossroads", we'd all still be hearing only the Robert Johnson version and be none the wiser.
You remind me of how an embittered black singer, Abby Lincoln, claimed "they" brought in "those white boys" the Beatles in order to destroy R & B.
Next thing, you'll be telling us that whites are culturally appropriating such black timeless ditties as "Move, Bitch."
Move, bitch, get out the way
Get out the way, bitch, get out the way
Move, bitch, get out the way
Get out the way, bitch, get out the way
Snort
That is a clear legacy of slavery in America.
What isn't these days?
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