Topic category:  Other/General

LieStoppers' cartoonist extraordinaire "Baldo": "It was about the Truth, not political parties."

As former President Bill Clinton might put it, "It depends upon what 'it' is.

If "it" refers to the motivation of those who rejected the self-serving, fantastic (and false) story (in various forms) told by ex-convict stripper Crystal Gail Mangum, eagerly embraced by now disgraced former Durham County, North Carolina District Attorney Michael B. Nifong (a Democrat) and political powers that be in Durham (Democrats) and pathetically promoted by the liberal media (with some noteworthy exceptions), then, as to LieStoppers, absolutely, and as to the initially small number who sensed that the Duke Three were being framed and refused to tolerate that, absolutely.

Some prominent examples of persons who championed the pursuit of the truth in the Duke case because it was the right thing to do:

Stuart Taylor, Jr., who led the way for so many, including Newsweek, bless his heart, an independent, not a Democrat or a Republican, who championed the wronged Duke Three and the other members of the 2005-2006 Duke University Men's Lacrosse Team before other pre-eminent commentators and took a sabbatical from National Journal to write a book on the Duke case (Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and The Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, the best book on the case).

Fox News' Sean Hannity, a conservative Republican and MSNBC's Dan Abrams, a liberal Democrat (I believe), each of whom used his big megaphones to pursue the truth, political correctness notwithstanding.

LaShawn Barber and Wendy McElroy, who strongly disagree on important issues, but ardently agreed on the Duke case from the start.

Libertarian Bill Anderson, who was never fooled, and liberal Democrat KC Johnson, who bizarrely praised the pernicious president of Duke University, Richard Brodhead, at the start, but recognized reality much faster than many other liberal Democrats and became Taylor's co-author.

If "it" refers to the prosecution of the Duke case itself, however, then "it" was all about politics and political parties, the Duke case was a Democrat scandal and timid fellow Democrats and Republicans behaved shamefully.

Prosecuting the Duke case was Nifong's way of winning a three-way Democrat primary against a white women (Freda Black) and a black man (Keith Bishop). Nifong would have come in second to the women whom he had forced out of the Durham County, North Carolina District Attorney's Office after he had been appointed District Attorney by fellow Democrat Governor Michael Easley if he did not suddenly become popular with Durham County's black voters by acting as though Mangum was telling an ugly truth instead of an ugly lie. (Nifong apparently feared that Black would return the favor and send him packing.)

Continuing to prosecute the Duke case was Nifong's way of winning a three-way general election race against an independent Democrat (Lewis Cheek) and a delusional Republican (Steve Monks) who stayed in the race, as though he was the candidate who could have beaten Nifong.

Democrat Governor Easley later said that Nifong had promised not to run for election before Easley appointed him, but before Election Day 2006 Easley chose to keep that to himself.

The Duke case was a Democrat scandal, but the Republican Party did not race to the rescue as it should have done.

North Carolina Republican Congressman Walter Jones rightly called for a federal investigation, but North Carolina's Republican United States Senators stayed mum and the United States Justice Department, under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, declined to investigate.

So much for the hope that truth necessarily trumps political calculation and one party will be quick to expose the excesses of the other!

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

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.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.