Betsy Schneider tipped me off to this excellent article from The Nation, "The Good Victim," by Gary Younge (most of the content is by subscription only, unfortunately), which included this passage

But in the stampede to remove him from the airwaves, some crucial principles were
crushed underfoot. For the consensus soon emerged that the problem with his comments
was not that they were said at all but that they were said about the wrong people.

"Imus lost his job not when he leveled his double-barreled slur at the Rutgers
team, but when the team held its press conference," argued Newsweek. "The
image of the self-possessed young women encouraged employees at NBC to rise up and
call for Imus's firing; their poise may also have persuaded advertisers to begin
pulling their sponsorships of Imus's show."

If these women had less poise maybe Imus would still be on the air. But they suffered
as only black people are supposed to suffer--with dignity. This is not a criticism
of the team or even a description so much as a statement of fact. The crowning of
the worthy victim has very little to do with the actual victims, and everything
to do with how those with more power or less principle or both seek to cast them
in a broader morality play of their own crafting.

and which led me to this. Apparently they also published her photo but I'm not going to do that here. I am leaving the author's E-mail at the bottom in case you'd care to write to him.

LET THE LIAR BE NAMED & SHAMED

April 12, 2007 -- HER name is Crystal Gail Man gum.

She is the woman who falsely accused three Duke University students of rape. Yesterday, the attorney general of North Carolina came forward and flatly declared the three young men "innocent of these charges."

That means their accuser is a liar.

Her name is Crystal Gail Mangum.

It is the policy of the news media not to publish the names of rape accusers on the grounds that they should not have to fear public shame for coming forward with word of a horrifying personal violation.

That is a noble policy. But it needs a codicil. The codicil is that if a rape accuser is revealed as a liar, her name should be spoken loudly and often - as loudly and often as the names of those whom she falsely accused have been over the past year.

Her name is Crystal Gail Mangum.

She must be denied anonymity because she makes a mockery of the very policy of granting anonymity to rape accusers. We do not publish their names so that they will not fear public exposure. But people who are tempted to do the monstrous thing Mangum did should fear public exposure.

They should be terrified of it.

They should have nightmares about it.

They should be given no encouragement whatsoever to believe they can launch a nuclear weapon at someone's reputation and escape unscathed.

Her name is Crystal Gail Mangum, and she should not escape the world's scorn because she is poor, or because she is black, or because her life circumstances led her to work as a "stripper."

Her name is Crystal Gail Mangum, and she does not deserve to lick the underside of the shoes of hardworking and honest people of color and modest means who somehow manage to get through life without attempting to destroy and defile the lives of others.

At his press conference yesterday, Attorney General Roy Cooper said something odd about the liar Crystal Gail Mangum. He said she would face no charges for her false accusation.

He said, "Our investigators who talked with her and the attorneys who talked with her over a period of time think that she may actually believe the many different stories that she has been telling. They worked real hard with her. It doesn't make sense. You can't piece it together."

The suggestion here is that she has psychological problems. So do millions upon millions of people in the United States. And they too manage, somehow, not to spin lies about rape into false arrests.

They somehow manage not to force families of those they falsely accuse to incur legal fees reportedly totaling more than $1 million per family. These families are sometimes described as "affluent," as though the fact that they live in nice communities in nice houses means they can afford million-dollar fees.

Attorney General Cooper did a good thing by making so unambiguous a statement of innocence as he freed David Evans, Reade Seligmann and Colin Finnerty from their year of torment.

Until I hear more that might justify his decision beyond a desire not to inflame racial passions in the Tar Heel State, I cannot help think that Cooper has done a very, very wrong thing by allowing Crystal Gail Mangum to avoid the judgment of his state's legal system.

Unless he changes his mind, then, the only justice she will face is the public exposure of her name and the revelation to all the world that, if she had had her way, three young men would have been sent to prison on false charges.

Her name is Crystal Gail Mangum.

Let her name be the new Mudd.

jpodhoretz@gmail.com