Dave Cullen is an all-'round good guy, but he's gonna catch hell for this one, his first article for Slate. It's about the Air Force Academy rape scandal:
[Defendant Douglas] Meester appears increasingly like a convenient scapegoat. After Meester's Article 32 hearing in May—the military analogue of a grand jury—the presiding investigating officer found the charges so flimsy that he recommended the court-martial be scuttled. And Weida's own legal adviser, Staff Judge Advocate Col. James Moody, advised the commandant of the court-martial's futility in a June memo: "To be frank, the rape and forcible sodomy charges are unlikely to result in findings of guilty." Yet he curiously recommended court-martial anyway. (Moody's statements were leaked to the Colorado Springs Gazette and independently confirmed by Slate.)
No wonder the military lawyers are dubious. The case against Meester is weak: Two cadets got really drunk and had sex. She regretted it in the morning; that made him a rapist.
It just gets better, so go read the whole thing already.
UPDATE: Dave already has caught hell, and lots of it.
PERSONAL NOTE: Yo, Dave -- next time, stick around the party long enough to do some real drinking.
I don't know what to make of Dave, as he got rid of the comment I made about the code of silence that has prevailed at the USAF Academy for decades. When unsavory acts are suddenly placed under the spotlight, it's not surprising that the Academy really doesn't know what to do next.
I think the one big error he made in the article was this:
"On any other campus, prosecuting a student for doing what Meester did would have provoked an outrage."
Actually, based on my limited understanding of the current campus climate, on any other campus someone doing what Meester did would have been strung up by his thumbs and castrated on the spot, and THEN prosecuted for rape...
According to feminists, women, pathetic, whining, weak vessels that we are, can never be responsible for their actions. That's why the ridiculous designation, date rape, was invented.
Period end of story.
Agree wholeheartedly with SDB. I thought the original piece was strong (and tragic), but reading the update made me further question Dave's honesty and/or intelligence. He thought that he'd get flack of the military people, and not from the rape-hysteria crowd? He's either lying or he's a fool.
None of the substance of this story is surprising, though. Rape is whatever the woman says it is at any time before, during, or after the act. Actual consent at the time of the act is irrelevant. Every guy knows that.
