Fox News "Special Report with Brit Hume" contributor and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer (who TCG personally thinks is one of the smartest people alive) made a great point about a possible double standard in rape cases, vis a vis the Duke rape investigation: is it fair to name the accused and not the accuser? Krauthammer said that the rules the media hews to today were made when the country was a very different place, when the culture was incredibly different and not as understanding and sympathetic to victims of sexual assault, and given that the world has changed, it might be a good idea to revisit the rule that the accused are always named, but never the accuser.
The bottom line is that double standard or no double standard in the media's handling of rape cases, the cases will always get the lion's share of press attention for one reason: they allow certain elements of the MSM to simultaneously dictate morality and revel in salaciousness at the same time. Like, oh, I don't know, say...Public Nitwit Number One, CNN's Paula Zahn, asking Jesse Jackson why the Duke accuser had such an icky job that may have put her in harm's way:
ZAHN: No one doubts your generosity in wanting to send this young woman through schools. But didn't she have options? Couldn't she have been a bus driver? Couldn't she have been a waitress? Weren't there other ways to make a living?
Aren't reporters like Zahn supposed to know that you can make a ton more money stripping than with waitressing or bus driving? Say, you know how many people suspect that a lot of prominent reporters are clueless, snotty, elitist, out-of-touch dummies who have no idea what many ordinary people go through in the course of a life without money for an education or for daycare? Well, those many people are right.
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» Paula Zahn, multitasking morality and salaciousness
