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Says a lot more about the people commenting on it than the actual individuals involved. I originally believed the accuser for two reasons: one, because I didn't think a district attorney would put all the time, energy and rhetoric into a completely false case backing a stripper (oh, was I wrong!), and second, due to my own prejudices against frat boys/athletes.
I genuinely regret the second assumption-- at least one of the accused proved himself a thoughtful, empathetic young man, and I salute him, and feel I judged all those boys wrongly.
But the first assumption, I think, was pretty legitimate. This wasn't purely a case of 'she said, they said,' it was a case of 'she said, they said, and the district attorney backs her up.' For all my cynicism about positions of authority, I believed in Nifong at first-- as a professional, and an attorney with a code of ethics to follow. Dahlia Lithwick has a really excellent piece in Slate today about the power prosecutors hold-- it's linked in my signature.
The media got it wrong, and so did a lot of individuals and bloggers. But I think a lot of commenters here are discounting the impact that Nifong's implied endorsement of the accuser had on people's attitudes.
