Monday, August 20, 2007

Selena, We hardly Know ye....

Angus raises a pretty good point. Strange to imagine that Michael Vick's friends are all the bad guys. Maybe, I don't know what happened, but quite a leap of faith.

Regardless of how that shakes out, the irony is that Selena "Lacrosse Witch Hunt" Roberts was one of the first, and shrillest, to advocate that the Duke lacrosse players rat out their compatriots. Why did she shriek such invective about the necessity for lacrosse players to rat out their boys, and yet hate on Vick's "associates"?

As Angus notes, this would "only make sense if [they were] innocent."

Of course, the lacrosse players WERE innocent, and so Selena's incredibly scathing critique was wholly misplaced. Nothing happened, and so it is hardly surprising the lacrosse players did not rat out their friends. (Excellent background here)

Further, the lacrosse captains, and the attorneys of the accused, offered to cooperate, but were told by Mike Nifong that he was not interested in their statement.

So, Selena (1) got the facts wrong, since the lacrosse guys DID cooperate, and (2) got the advice wrong, since it is hard to imagine ratting out your friends WHEN THEY DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!

On Michael Vick: I don't know if he did anything or not. But if his friends want to talk to the police, I would have thought Selena would approve, given her advice to the lacrosse players. Or maybe Selena just has different standards for different (shall we say) situations.

PS: I should note that I talked to Selena Roberts for a story some years ago. And this was really quite a good, and fair story. She caught an inconsistency, and pointed it out, against political stereotype. I wonder, as Angus does, what has happened to change her.

1 comment:

Angus said...

and now indeed with the guilty plea by Vick we see that Selena got both cases exactly wrong. According to her the guilty guy was betrayed by disloyal "snitches", while the sniveling Dookies maliciously and malevolently refused to rat out their innocent teammates.

Y'know what? I think she's ready for the NYT Editorial Page!!!!