I could say that it is unreasonable to expect me to suspect that The Amsterdam News had edited North Carolina journalist and television commentator Cash Michaels' article entitled "Obama Blasted for Backing Fed Duke Case Probe" to delete the pro-Obama part, but after Durham's News & Observer deleted the race of the suspect in Duke Alleged Rape Case Two from the Durham Police Department's official description of the person they were seeking in connection with the matter (black, incidentally), perhaps I should have suspected The Amsterdam News of such skulduggery.
Whatever, I apologize to Mr. Michaels for not suspecting that and any upset he suffered as a result of my lack of suspicion of a leading member of America's Black press. Having criticized enthusiastic supporters of the persecuted members of the 2005-2006 Duke University Men's Lacrosse Team for criticizing Mr. Michaels in a way that was vulgar or might even seem to some reasonable people to be racial, I should hold myself to the highest standard.
Mr. Michaels emailed me the following, with "AS MISINFORMED AS EVER" as the subject line:
"Gaynor:
"Apparently you didn't realize that the Amsterdam News version of my Obama story was heavily editted, thus, your dimwitted analysis of my piece was inaccurate.
"Attached is the unabridged version, and surprise, surprise, you are in it, as is K.C. Johnson.
"You will find both sides of the argument here, something you are not capable of doing on your best day.
"Cheers!
"C"
Putting aside my shortcomings, both real and imagined, I take solace that Mr. Michaels did NOT suggest that my article was in any way "inaccurate" with respect to what appeared under his name in The Amsterdam News.I won't repeat what I wrote before about that apparently edited version, but I will set forth below material that The Amsterdam News deliberately deleted (assuming Mr. Michaels is right about that 'heavy edit[ing]").
Mr. Michaels represented that his unedited article also stated:
"Opinion makers in the Duke Three movement were also cautiously optimistic.
"'Fervently anti-Communist Winston Churchill found some good words for Stalin after he joined the war against Hitler,' wrote conservative syndicated columnist Michael Gaynor this week, 'So I'll give leftist Senator Barack Obama full credit for combining a sensible position on the Duke case and smart politics.'
"The so-called Duke case is a Democrat scandal, but it's not Democrat presidential aspirant Obama's scandal,' Gaynor later added.
“'The Democratic presidential candidate is the first member of the Senate to publicly endorse such a call,' Brooklyn College History Professor K.C. Johnson, creator of the pro-Duke Three blogsite 'Durham-in-Wonderland' and co-author of the upcoming Duke case book titled, 'Until Proven Innocent,' wrote this week. 'As a former adjunct at the University of Chicago Law School, [Sen. Obama] has impeccable legal credentials. And as a man with a strong following in the African-American community, he has impeccable political credentials to issue such a plea.'"
"To Duke Three supporters like Professor K. C. Johnson, who admits that he is not an attorney, Nifong’s alleged civil rights violations are obvious.
"Johnson claims that Nifong 'conspired' with a Durham police investigator to falsely prosecute the three defendants, and made '"wrongful use of a governmental instrumentality"—i.e., a prosecutor’s power, misused for the purpose of winning an election,' and thus 'defraud' the United States.
"Johnson also alleges Nifong violated the Duke Three’s civil rights through corruption (rigging the police lineup for example); conspiring with Durham police investigators to falsify information in official documents (application for search warrants) to facilitate a false prosecution; and having police ‘intimidate’ and ‘harass’ the taxi cab driver who provided defendant Reade Seligman with an alibi the night of the alleged assault at the lacrosse team party."
"Attorney Gen. Gonzales told Fox News Sunday in January that a federal probe might be warranted if there’s evidence that the Nifong’s Duke investigation '…is conducted in such a way that civil rights laws are violated,' adding, 'that would be something that we might look into.'
"Critics like Johnson, however, say because the alleged criminal behavior of the Duke case prosecutor was egregious from the start, it deserved federal inquiry long before now.
"Last December, Prof. Johnson wrote, 'The Nifong case is thus exceptional in two respects: (1) the misconduct has come to light months before a trial could start; (2) the misconduct has occurred in the public eye. Federal inaction, therefore, risks undermining public faith in the justice system, by sending a message that all prosecutors are rogues like Nifong.'
"Apparently Sen. Obama, who once served as a civil rights attorney, agrees.
Some legal experts, however don’t, and chide the Illinois Democrat for leaping into a controversy before thoughtfully looking first."
Truth be told, Mr. Michaels' article was fair and balanced and The Amsterdam News apparently chose to make it UNfair and UNbalanced.
The Amsterdam News should apologize to Mr. Michaels too, and republish his article in unabridged form. (I'm not counting on it though.)
Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.
Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.
The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.
Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.
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