ricki-rictrola:"...Zacharek is absolutely in the tradition of Pauline Kael: middle brow, high standards. It's a good place for a film critic to be."

Agreed

Unlovely Truth: "Rocky57 says there was a rush to demonize these guys on the right.

He does so with an apparent straight face, even though in a similar case at Duke, 88 professors signed a statement hoping that the innocent boys would fry. The DA tried to prosecute even though he knew the story was garbage.

Something must be different between the Hofstra case and the Duke case to cause these two different reactions. I wonder what it is..hmmmm....."

And, your point is? The prosecutors' actions aren't exactly on point when it comes to "demonisation." The Right and some mainstream media outlets were specifically mentioned in my post in regard to the main question as to whether the story was appropriately covered by Broadsheet.

As for the professors at Duke? Again, your point? At Hofstra, it was pretty much "believe the victim; nail the [alleged] perps," just as it was at Duke.

If you want to make some sort of comparison between the two cases--I've yet to read, in American history, recent or otherwise--of cases where guys fitting the approximate demographic profile of the Duke accused being lynched or suffering a similar dire circumstance, in the assumed circumstance surrounding this case; any observer of objective reality would readily admit that there've been too many cases of the same fate not being avoided by those fitting the phenotype of their Hofstra counterparts. Once again, it's all about context when making the decision whether and how to cover a story.

I love the typical "But, what about..." arguments emanating from some quarters of the socio-political spectrum. It's predictable--and rather desperate.

MWise:"It doesn't sound like racism or misogyny to me. It looks to be pretty clear cut. The Hofstra student made a false accusation of rape. It was investigated and she admitted to lying. The legal system worked as it should have here. Now all that is left is to charge her with a false claim."

You can't ignore it, MWise: Given the tragic socio-political history of this country, and the current antics of the modern-day GOP, to gloss over this story, and its possible ramifications, with a "that's all there is to it, now let's move along folks" take on it would be, well, criminal.

If the alleged victim was a white woman, and given the rush to demonise the four men of colour not only by the Right but by some corners of the mainstream media, this story begs to be looked at through an historical lens, with context and perspective. A substantial portion of that famous lynching exhibition of a few years back was the product of allegations, far too many of them false, by white women and men levelled at black men for alleged sexual transgressions. That black woman writer at Ohio State witnessed-and, apparently marked by it still, today--a relatively innocuous outcome of a similar lie--good thing that incident was north of the Mason-Dixon, at a time and place where things were [at last] beginning to change.

mattwa:"...Because if he didn't, maybe the story would be about how the President really was lying. Maybe it would be about how he promised to negotiate lower drug prices in his speech when he already negotiated that possibility away. Or maybe it would be about how this plan actually helps private insurers, which means it hurts us...."

Whether Obama "really [is] lying" about those issues or not, that isn't the point, Mattwa...Wilson violated civility and long-standing rules of Congress by calling Obama a liar regarding a particular part of health care not applying to illegal immigrants. Something that has no basis in any sane observer's reality. And something I've never seen, in a Presidential major address, in all my years of observing the national political landscape.

The question many of us have is why, from day one, has this President faced a level of vitriol unprecedented--and that includes the GOP's equally diversionary and shameful treatment of Clinton, who, after all, didn't have his very legitimacy as an American citizen questioned--in the annals of modern American political history?

Rockstar8989: "Nothing like a little Bush-Bash to take our eye off the current Comander in Chief. How is he doing, Salonista's?"

He'd be doing even better if he hadn't had a particular predecessor making a shambles of the White House and this Republic.