Which means that the cackling hens who are Western Civilization's self-appointed court of last resort for all things gender -- women who write features pieces for the US's and the UK's leading dailies -- will commence their usual caterwauling about the misogyny in allowing a little thing like a woman's credibility to interfere with the conviction of a presumptively innocent man in a "he said/she said" sex case.
And they will wring their hands and beat their breasts about how this will keep women from coming forward to report their rapes.
I take no delight in stating the obvious: that's what happens when you insist on accepting the word of a hotel maid -- but any woman will do -- about whom you know absolutely nothing, over the word of a man who heads up the intergovernmental organization that oversees the global financial system -- but any man will do. This wasn't a rush to judgment, it was a 60-meter sprint in record time.
We will also hear from the usual newspaper columnists who are disgusted that this woman did what she did but are at least equally disgusted with DSK -- for putting himself in a situation where a woman could falsely accuse him of a vile crime. You know, "victim blaming," except nobody will call it that, because men are pigs and all that.
There's plenty of blame to spread around for this debacle.
First, there's Nafissatou Diallo. We routinely make this point and will continue to do so until we drop dead: we have handed anonymous women and children far too much power to destroy innocent men and boys, and this case only underscores that point. When it comes to rape claims, this country more closely resembles Salem, Massachusetts, 1692, than the nation of Jefferson and Lincoln.
Then there's the district attorney and the nitwits at the NYPD Special Victims Unit who didn't even know she was a prostitute (according to the New York Post), much less a world-class liar (according to the New York Times), before subjecting DSK to the most celebrated perp walk since Lee Harvey Oswald. Even if the charges are dropped, it can't be said that the system "worked" here. Not by a long shot.
And finally, the news media deserves a big share of the blame. First, we can blame the vaunted anonymity policy of our nation's newspapers that shields the names of rape accusers. As Professor Alan Dershowitz pointed out, if the accuser hadn't been anonymous, people who knew her or knew her reputation could have "come forward to provide relevant information" about her. That didn't happen. So the news media proceeded to convict DSK and to beatify his accuser (beatification is one step removed from sainthood). Now we have yet another high profile rape case that looks like it was a lie.
And second, we can blame the editors who blew this case into a Circus Maximus, and the reporters and columnists who put Nafissatou Diallo's picture on holy cards. None of them could resist using the DSK case as another gender passion play where all womanhood is figuratively nailed to the cross, and all manhood is an amalgam of Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate. By accepting at face value the allegations of a woman whose allegations, by any rational measure, should not be accepted, they blithely helped destroy an innocent man. They also made everyone -- except the extremist loons allied with the sexual grievance industry -- doubt just a little more the word of every woman who cries rape. Congratulations! I am reminded of the words of a female reporter after the Hofstra debacle where the news media famously rushed to judgment and "convicted" four young minority men: “We need to move slower." Yes, you need to, but you won't.
So, let's see: we have the rape accuser, law enforcement, and the news media. The same old-same old unholy triumvirate.
You know, business as usual.
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