Peter Beinart Rises to the Defense of New York City Officials (And Other DSK Updates)
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here. Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]
First, I have to say I agree with the majority of what Peter Beinart says in defending how authorities have behaved in this case:
[W]hether or not DSK goes free, his case reflects well on American justice. We can hold our heads high.
Let’s review the facts. A housekeeper comes forward. She says she was sexually assaulted, in an account that, according to The New York Times “was so compelling that it brought tears to the eyes of seasoned investigators.” There is powerful physical evidence: ripped stockings, a torn shoulder ligament, a vaginal bruise. Initial interviews with people in the hotel seem to corroborate her story. DSK is on a plane on his way to France, a country with which we have no extradition treaty for such crimes. So the police take him off the plane. What other option did they have?
In fact, they did have another option. Here, after all, was one of the most powerful men in the world, a steward of the international economy, a potential future president of one America’s key allies. He was being accused of sexual assault by a black, Muslim immigrant maid, a woman with virtually no status or power. For the police in most countries, at most moments in history, it would not have been a close call: let him fly. Tell her to shut up. If she won’t, find some way of making her shut up.
What happened on May 14 is not just defensible. As an example of equality before the law, it is downright inspiring.
Okay, I wouldn’t use the word inspiring, but otherwise he is right on. We cannot judge this case with 20/20 hindsight and we cannot reasonably expect police and prosecutors to wait for proof beyond a reasonable doubt before arresting a person, especially if he is about to go to France Polanskiland. He goes on to praise how local officials eventually ferreted out the accuser’s serious credibility problems and subsequently disclosed them. This is ideally how the system is supposed to work.
In other news, the French complaint for attempted rape was filed against Dominique Strauss-Kahn (who is a man) in France, and the American accuser is now suing the New York Post for calling her a prostitute, which is weird because they were not the only media outlet to call her one.
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
Of course, she has to sue the New York Post.
She has to.
If she lets the Post’s recent reporting stand without putting up a fight, she’s essentially admitting it. And whatever shreds of credibility she might have had (along with whatever aspirations of making money out of this episode she was harboring) go right out the window.
She had to sue.
But, funny, I’d betcha that the N.Y. Post has probably been sued once or twice before, probably has a lawyer or two on retainer, and probably knows just where the line is drawn between defamation and non-defamation.
But that’s just my opinion. YMMV.
Major Kong (8c01d8) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:09 amHe was being accused of sexual assault by a black, Muslim immigrant maid, a woman with virtually no status or power. For the police in most countries, at most moments in history, it would not have been a close call: let him fly. Tell her to shut up. If she won’t, find some way of making her shut up.
Hrothgar (97abd9) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:13 amShe was the perfect “victim” for the liberal courts of NYC (and most of the country)–the DA had no choice but to start the prosecution.
Oh, and just for the record: I was amongst the legions who thought, based on the initial reports, that DSK was guilty.
Hell, I wanted him to be guilty. Because, well, he’s a Euro-Socialist, he’s French, and, frankly, he’s pretty much of a pig. This case pinged all of my schadenfreude meters, so I wanted him to be guilty.
But, when the facts change, my opinions change.
There seem to still be a lot of people on the interwebz who have trouble wrapping their brains around the fact that many of the “facts” which were initially widely reported seem now to have been simply untrue.
Instead of accepting that the facts have changed, many people seem to have dug in, and just keep repeating the same discredited “facts”, as if repeating them over and over and over again will somehow make them come true.
That’s just unhealthy.
Major Kong (8c01d8) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:15 amKong
well, except i wouldn’t be surprised if the NYP can then have a counter-claim against her for attorney’s fees. i believe that is common on first-amendment-related cases.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:15 amAaron:
Well, last I heard, NYP said they “stand by” their initial reporting.
And they seemed pretty damn confident about what they were reporting.
So, if that’s still true, and what they reported is true, I hope they do counter-sue, and win.
After all, I’ve heard it reported that this woman has like $100K in a bank account somewhere.
NYP should grab it, before DSK can.
Major Kong (8c01d8) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:38 amThat depends on where they got it from. If they all got it from the Post, then they have a defense of having thought it true, while the Post would not have that defense. Remember that the NY Post does not employ any fact checkers. It relies on each reporter to fact-check his own stories. So suing the paper would mean putting the reporter on the stand and making him reveal his source, if he had one. I don’t think a jury will buy the usual journalistic line that “I had a source, I really truly did, but I can’t tell you”. People have had enough of that line by now, and so long as no evidence emerges that she is a prostitute she should stand a good chance of prevailing. Which means that even if she doesn’t, attorneys’ fees should be out of the question.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:40 ammilhouse
going by memory, i believe the NY Times didn’t say merely that the NYP said it, but actually said it themselves.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:44 amOh, and one last thing (and I promise this really will be my last comment on this whole sordid affair):
If all or even some of these allegations against the accuser gain traction (the asylum fraud, the tax fraud, the false statements, the association with drug traffickers, the unexplained affluence, the prostitution and human trafficking allegations, etc., etc.), then I think she will soon be more concerned with finding a good criminal defense attorney, and a good immigration attorney, and less concerned with tort suits of any kind.
Major Kong (8c01d8) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:46 amI’m going to have to object, only half-facetiously, to your constant repetition of the phrase “Dominique Strauss-Kahn (who is a man)”. He’s not a man by any standards of manhood I would aspire to. I suggest an alternative phrasing: “Dominique Strauss-Kahn (who is male)”.
Robin Munn (347954) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:48 amP.S. And I mean that even knowing that he’s probably innocent of rape — because the other possibility, that he essentially hired a prostitute to play out a rape scenario, is also morally disgusting, even if it’s not criminal in the eyes of the law.
Robin Munn (347954) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:49 amIf the physical evidence was so strong and compelling before, then what difference should it make that the witness is not reliable? After all, according to you they weren’t relying on her word in the first place. But if the physical evidence isn’t all that compelling, then it means they were relying on her word, and that is something they did wrong. Pulling him off the plane was reasonable, but it should have been done in a dignified fashion; and how he was treated afterwards is disgraceful.
The authorities’ defense seems to be “that’s how we treat everybody”. That’s like a mugger, on being asked why he did it, claiming in his defense that since he routinely mugs people every day, there’s nothing special about this instance; that’s not a defense, it’s a confession! Committing a crime routinely doesn’t mitigate any one instance of it; no victim feels better because she’s not alone.
The only solution is to get rid of the judge-created doctrine of qualified immunity. Make police and prosecutors subject to personal consequences if they unjustly harm someone, just like everyone else is, and they’ll be more careful.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:50 amkong
agree with that 100%. I am no immigration law expert, but lying to get into the US is both a crime and a deportable offense.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:51 amThat doesn’t matter, so long as they reported it after it came out in the Post, and can therefore claim that the Post was their source, and that since it was in the Post they assumed it was true.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:52 amAnd yet there’s probably not a person on the planet who wouldn’t do it, to get away from wherever it was she came from.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 7/6/2011 @ 6:54 ammilhouse
> That doesn’t matter, so long as they reported it after it came out in the Post,
I could be wrong, but i think the law would look at the following statements very differently:
1. DSK’s accuser was a prostitute.
2. the NYP reports that DSK’s accuser was a prostitute.
The second statement is undeniably true, even if she is not a prostitute. NYP has definitely said she was, true or not. The first? i think that the courts look at that as a declaration that you know, and are not merely repeating what someone else has said.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 7/6/2011 @ 7:12 amWe still do not know what happened, aside from there being a sexual encounter.
Was it consensual, with her lying about it (for what purpose, to extort money from him? Why him at this time?)
Was it rape (even if she has a sketchy background, it doesn’t mean she wasn’t raped, just that it’s going to be hard to prove?)
To believe DSK’s side, we have to have an African immigrant who’s sophisticated enough to lie to our immigration authorities, game the public housing system, consort with all sorts of lowlifes, while getting a job at an elite hotel (wouldn’t such a hotel screen all employees? This isn’t a Motel 6, all sorts of Important People stay there, with plenty of opportunities for mischief, especially after Sept. 11), get a quick sexual encounter, and then be able to fool other hotel staff, police rape units and DAs. I suppose one could be that street-smart, especially if you have to fend for yourself in the backwaters of Africa.
But why was DSK’s team so quick to jump on her credibility? Has he stayed at the hotel before, and, ah, employed her services?
ISTM that we are going from one end of the pendulum to the other, from “she was raped, lock him up for life” to “she’s a prostitute trying to extort a rich guy.” There’s too much we don’t know.
rbj (487e2c) — 7/6/2011 @ 7:30 amAaron, at least in the case of a public figure it’s not defamation if you had a good reason to think it was true. “I saw it in the NY Post” is a valid defense, even if you’re a professional journalist and know what an unreliable rag the Post is. Was this woman a public figure? Who knows how a court would rule on that? But that would be the Times‘s defense. The Post would not have that defense available to it, and would have to reveal why it believed the story to be true.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 7/6/2011 @ 7:41 amAgree with you re Beinart. He states the matter well.
angeleno (ba20e9) — 7/6/2011 @ 7:43 ammilhouse
Ah, well, i assumed that the court would rule that she wasn’t a public figure. who ever heard of an anonymous public figure?
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 7/6/2011 @ 7:49 amThe essence of the lower protection for “public figures” is that they’ve put themselves in the limelight and invited scrutiny, and/or that it’s in the public interest for their backgrounds to be carefully examined. Both considerations apply here. Is that how a court would rule? Who knows?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 7/6/2011 @ 8:13 am… ripped stockings, a torn shoulder ligament, a vaginal bruise.” …..
Sounds like one hell of a bender.
Sponge Bob Square Pants (786e37) — 7/6/2011 @ 8:56 am“I hope they do counter-sue, and win.”
Win what? Herpes?
That is the problem with the civil world, any idiot can find a lawyer, sue, cause all sorts of monetary damages in the form of legal fees, and then walk away scott-free cause they got nothing to lose.
Sponge Bob Square Pants (786e37) — 7/6/2011 @ 8:58 amTrue, but in a “civil case”, even when you win, you often get nada. How much money did the Goldman family collect from “mr. wonderful”, after they won their civil suit in Santa Monica? Zilch. Unless an insurance carrier is backing your play and the defendants, good luck collecting.
O-mah (4de175) — 7/6/2011 @ 9:01 amI think he’s most likely a dirty rapist – he’s one of those people you just don’t leave girls alone with cause of he might rape them
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 7/6/2011 @ 9:43 amI wonder if the NYP spoke to any of her “Johns” or if any of them will now come forward (assuming that what they reported is true), afterall if she is, in fact, a pro, she would have had customers. It will be interesting to see what happens along that line.
BT (74cbec) — 7/6/2011 @ 10:03 amWell, of course she – and her team of legal sharks – sued the Rupert Murdoch owned NYPost, because everyone knows that the assets of NewsCorp are just shills for the moralizing VRWC that demeans women, minorities, and the dis-advantaged.
AD-RtR/OS! (c036a6) — 7/6/2011 @ 10:23 amRight?
It’s inspiring. In the case of the cops, full stop. Not that they’ll get any credit from the seething elites — Euro and home-grown. The prosecutors, too, conducted themselves as they were supposed to do — without prejudice.
Enter the activists, whiners, paranoiac libertarians, Democrats, and cop-hates of all political stripes. Not to mention the ingratitude of the professional feminists, who have not so much as whispered thanks.
No case proves more the degree to which our law enforcement professionals are far, far better at a far more difficult job than most of us will ever have to do. Thanks for saying so, Mr. Worthington.
Tina Trent (7f2406) — 7/6/2011 @ 3:32 pmHrothgar is right — a ‘wealthy and powerful white male’ against the oh, so helpless blackimmigrantmuslim. In a city with a history of DAs who love to ‘perp walk’ the man.
The real honor here is that Vance had enough decency to recognize his mistake.
stari_momak (d5f987) — 7/6/2011 @ 5:17 pmActually what I think about the French offering us instruction in our duties to the world is “Stuff it Froggy” And I have more French friends than most Americans.
f1guyus (2a84e9) — 7/6/2011 @ 7:45 pmLooks like they did the right thing…hold onto to the guy while they check it out.
If he escapes to France, he’s gone for good, guilty or not guilty.
Dave Surls (3db74f) — 7/7/2011 @ 12:33 pmSomething about this hit me wrong. Beinart, being right about something? It stretches the imagination . . .
But of course it was just PC BS in action: rich white powerful old man, poor black muslim laborer, the Liberal History of Civilization in microcosm.
If anyone had suggested, on the first day of this scandal, that she was a lying muslim whore looking for a fast payday, he would have been vilified, driven from polite society, or identified as French (perhaps an even greater humiliation), and labelled a “racist” for all time.
Only now, after she is proven to be a lying muslim whore looking for a fast payday, is it safe to identify her as a lying muslim whore looking for a fast payday, although it was equally true at both times.
Estragon (ec6a4b) — 7/8/2011 @ 1:56 am