She has officially been declared not to be a rape victim. She is a false accuser. She has no right to be shielded any longer.

fwiw, I have the same emotional response to writing her name now as I did earlier today - ie., it's kind of anti-climactic.

"FA," or "false accuser," is, or has become, so much more appropriate and expeditious than Crystal Gail Mangum, imo.

She is not a rape victim.

She is a false accuser.

I hope genuine victims of sexual assault and rape still feel confident enough to report their situations.  It's not inhumane to demand that they be honest when they do so.

While it may be true in this case, I think it more than a bit unbalanced to imply all accusers are false if they cannot legally nail their attackers.

the implication, that these true victims are just so pathetic and unstable, so little is required to drive them over the edge, is, at best, insulting. again, as i noted elsewhere, i have yet to see any documented evidence that instances of this nature result in a material dimunition of reports by real victims.

prosecutors who file improper charges or who withhold evidence.

the case of the three duke athletes

is connected

to the cases of weak/false charges of politically motivated fraud by united states attorneys.

in wisconsin, for example, the office of u.s. attorney steven biskovic, under what i suspect was pressure from the white house, caused a civil servant, georgia thompson, to be convicted and sent to prison pending appeal .

today,

at talking points memo, josh marshall summarizes some other cases of the flagrant abuses of prosecutors' power in "voter fraud" cases brought by u.s. attorneys under pressure from the white house.

with respect to maintaining faith in the legal system,

it does no good to carefully choose juries, and then carefully monitor jurors or sequester them,

in order to avoid undue influence on their judgment and prejudicing a trial outcome

if

the case brought by the state is improper or false.

and when false prosecutorial charges are brought involving the voting system,

the damages are double

the legal system and the voting system become suspect.

Essentially, our culture has devolved into the serial practice of partisanship without regard for the individual or the pursuit of the truth. We're not looking to find the truth, we're looking to create truth and that is a pivotal distinction. As such, each issue becomes the flagship for opposing interest groups and the epicenter for partisan politics. Those actually involved in this and other incidents (and they are often victims) become nothing more than pawns in an elaborate game of chess...and they are frequently further victimized.

These situations shouldn't be about whether liberals or conservatives, this race or that race, hip hop or honky-tonk, one group or another, are more offensive and therefore more responsible for all that is wrong with America.

I'm not a religious person...but I often find kinship with the imagery surrounding the portrayal of one called Jesus and his teachings of understanding and forgiveness. For all the banter I hear about the Bible and Christian values, it certainly seems to me that we are fast abandoning what many view as the sacred "tablets" in favor of the sacrosanct tabloids. If I'm right, all I can say is heaven help us.

Read more about the dynamics that lead a situation to become larger than the sum of its parts...here:

I too have long felt that both those accused of rape and possible rape victims should have anonymity.  It not only safeguards the privacy and reputation of both but allows for less sensationalist reporting in the media.   Maybe that anonymity should be maintained until the case has been through a court of law and if that never happens, such as in this case, the anonymity remains.  That way, both those who are potentially falsely accused and those who are rape victims but unable to prove it remain protected.