Tucker's Situtation

Tucker Carlson was out of control last night ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12720378/ ) on his show "The Situation with Tucker Carlson". He was ridiculous and outrageous in his insistance that the young lady alledgedly raped by members of the Duke University Lacrosse team was clearly nothing but a prostitute.

Excerpts:

"She worked for an escort service. You‘ve got to be kidding. I‘m an adult. That‘s what people who work for escort services are..."

"...what everybody knows but everybody for some reason can‘t bring him or herself to say, which is this woman was a prostitute working for a company that supplied prostitutes for people who ordered them. OK, that‘s just true. It‘s not something I made up. It‘s a fact.
And I don‘t know why we are afraid to say what is true.


I find it amazing how quickly the news media, especially the conservative leaning shows, is so quick to blame this victims lifestyle for her current predicament. I hate to label people as rascist, but the double standards are obvious. Even Dan Abrahms, who was quick to defend the young caucasian lady who was assaulted, raped and murdered in NY after leaving a bar at 4am in the morning alone, when people simply suggested she could have made better choices, showed his obvious biases when he suggested that the Duke victim was not credible because the police report stated that she initially said "20 white guys" assaulted her then changed her story to only 3 of them raping her. However, both Tucker and Dan gloss over the fact that Duke itself issued a report stating that the initial police response to this womans complaints could have been wholly inadequate. Duke surmisses that she was not taken seriously beacause the first responders did not believe she was "important enough".

It is entirely possible that instead of being drunk as these commentators suggest, this victim could have been given a date rape drug and was therefore not in any state of mind or body to initailly offer an accurate decription of what happened to her. However, this benefit of the doubt is not extended to this victim. In her case their common positions are, "show me the evidence". Of course, ultimately the evidence will have to be shown. And it is entirely possible that the accused young men are innocent. I believe we should wait until all the evidence is presented to make up our minds. I admit that my natural inclination is to believe the victim because of my own personal biases (which may become more evident in the future), but I am certainly able to be rational and pass judgement only when the facts are presented.

These commentators greatest frustration is that the District Attorney is not willing to show what he knows to the media. Although they accuse him of trying the case in the media beacuse of his own political ambitions, they are most frustrated because he refuses to do exactly that. Hopefully he will continue to defend this victims rights and represent her case as long as he believes she is credible. Ultimately the defense may prevail anyway, because of the difficulty in proving rape charges.

Of course, if we are a civilised society we should hope that justice is done all around, for the alleged victim and the alleged accused. Although we respond emotionally thru our biases, we must step back and evolve our judgements from the facts presented and the principles we supposedly espouse. Our final judgements should provide no clue to our held prejudices.

Obviously, in TUCKERS WORLD, exotic dancers are all prostitutes. This woman may or may not be. But Tuckers insistance that America knows what people like this young lady really are only proves to America who he really is.


PS: I must thank Tucker for providing the catalyst to get me off my ass and set up a Blog.