Opinion: Sharpton’s other cause

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

As he makes the talk-show circuit excoriating Don Imus, the Rev. Al Sharpton had better hope that he won’t be grilled about another story ripped from the headlines: the exoneration of the three former Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting an exotic dancer.

Now that North Carolina’s attorney general has dropped the remaining charges against the three, pack journalism has gone into reverse – especially TV journalism. I awoke today to CNN coverage of the Duke story that portrayed the three players – not so long ago the embodiment of rich-kid privilege -- as all-American boys who were pulled into a Kafkaesque nightmare.

Al Sharpton is only marginally a member of the media, but he was at least as credulous as the MSM in giving the Duke players’ accuser a huge benefit of the doubt. I’m no fan of Bill O’Reilly’s – or vice versa; he once called me a “pinhead” – but O’Reilly had the better of Sharpton in this April 19, 2006 exchange on “The O’Reilly Factor”:

O’REILLY: Why are we standing up for the girl if there is the possibility, based upon evidence, that the girl may have fabricated the story? Why don’t we all pull back and let the authorities investigate and let the legal system work?

SHARPTON: Well, first of all, the authorities have charged there was a crime, so they are not saying that at all. Second of all, people on any side of an argument have the [right] to advocate on behalf of who they believe. Thirdly, I think that when the prosecutors went forward, they clearly have said this girl is the victim, so why would we be trying the victim and not the [accused]?

Like a lot of journalists, Sharpton reacted to the Duke prosecution not as a case but as a cause. He’s an activist, but what’s our excuse?