This has been in the works for a while, but the Manhattan District Attorney is about to drop charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn. If the witness isn’t credible, the witness isn’t credible, that’s how the justice system is supposed to work. But get ready for another round of “how could this lying nobody ruin such a great man’s reputation”.
What I find most strange about the Village reaction is that Strauss-Kahn did have sexual relations with that woman (prosecutors have physical evidence) yet he’s a VSP in good standing whereas when Bill Clinton had a clearly consensual relationship with a woman who never accused him of assault, that was proof that Clinton was white trash scum who deserved to be removed from office and possibly put in jail.
Update. From Sally Quinn, I shit you not (it’s real):
And we were standing there getting some shrimp or something together, and all of a sudden both of us went, `Ah!’ And we turned around and looked, and there was Strom standing between us with one hand on my mother’s behind and one hand on mine and just smiling and beaming and just feeling so pleased with himself. And, of course, my mother, who’s very Southern, just the way Strom is and from Savannah, Georgia–we’re both from Savannah–Mother said, `Oh, Strom, you old devil,’ you know. And we just thought it was the cutest thing, and we told everybody about it, that wicked old Strom Thurmond.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as i understand it, enough women have come forward in france to confirm that this guy is scum
As to the Village… Jesus, Fuck, who knows? They’ve lost their moral compass since Monsignor Russert died?
Joel
Power.
she's crafty
One large part of the witness’s lack of credibility is the DA’s mistranslation of her conversations. So they really shot themselves in the foot on this one.
Jenny
I always thought the Village hated Clinton because he jacked up their taxes and didnt attend their parties, so they used whatever weapon available to club him.
After all, it never bothered them that Giuliani was having an affair with his very own press secretary, Cristyne Lategano.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jenny:
Wasn’t he cheating on his designated extra-marital mistress, the current future ex-Mrs Giuliani, when he had his fling with Christyne?
Violet
But Clinton came in and trashed the place. And it wasn’t his place.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think the Village’s sickest moment was when Strom Thurmond died. His secret daughter was treated as a “heart-warming story”, cause you know there couldn’t be any suggestion of coercion when a young white man in 1930s Jim Crow South Carollina “seduced” the family’s maid. There was even a story about Strom as a prosecutor “seducing” a female prisoner while he was driving her to prison to serve out her sentence. All this was treated as being every bit as adorable as Sally Quinn’s story about the time Strom pinched her and her mother’s bottoms at a garden party “Oh, Strom….”
MBunge
Sadly, I’m going to spend the rest of my life pointing out that while only some corporate CEO’s would have lost their jobs for sexually exploiting an intern, every CEO on the planet would have lost their jobs for lying about it the way Clinton did.
Mike
PeakVT
I never got into the specifics of this case so I don’t know where the blame should go. But it looks to me like the net effect is that the outcome will make it a little bit harder for rape victims to get justice in the US. Hopefully I’m wrong, of course.
soonergrunt
The differences between DSK and WJC are many and varied, and they go a very long way to explaining why the villagers acted one way for DSK and another for WJC.
DSK looks like he was born in a $3,000 suit. WJC looked like he was most at home in jeans and a work shirt.
DSK was born wealthy, and has lived his entire life like an elite. WJC worked his way up from the bottom and was probably the closest thing to a regular guy in the White House since Truman.
DSK told the truth about his sordid incident, or enough of a truth, anyway, while WJC lied and prevaricated about it.
marginalized for stating documented facts
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the right kind of people. Bill Clinton was a hick hillbilly from Arkansas.
When a guy like DSK beats up his maid and bends her over the table and rams her, it’s “bondange and domination.” Elegant stuff. When Bill Clinton gets his rocket polished by an intern, it’s sexual harrassment and dereliction of duty and borderline treason.
Same deal as when Reagan ordered troops into Lebanon. That was strong and manly, a true act of patriotism. But when Obama ordered troops into Libya, that was the treasonous act of a rabidly anti-colonialist muslim Maoist fifth columnist bent of destroying everything that makes this nation great.
What else is new?
gbear
Maybe the next day he’ll be off’ed by the very same women.
Steve Crickmore
It depends which woman, with Clinton, testified about consensual vs non-consensual sex; maybe not Jennifer Flowers or Monica Lewinsky,
but several others fell into the latter category.
As far as a reputation for telling the truth, I don´t know of a successful politician who doesn’t lie. It is normally the unsuccessful ones who have less larceny in them.
kd bart
I thought the Village hated Clinton because Hillary and he didn’t play by their rules and didn’t give damn what they thought.
Big Baby DougJ
@MBunge:
You’re serious? You think every CEO who slept with someone who worked for him and lied about it lost his job?
I can’t check your IP…you are commenting from planet earth, right?
Svensker
When DSK was first arrested my hub said he’d get off and would never go to trial because he was too rich and too powerful. I didn’t believe it. I’m very sad he was right.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MBunge:
From the transparently bogus Paula Jones suit, to the six plus year journey Ken “Ahab” Starr made from Whitewater to the little room off the Oval Office, it’s hard to imagine a CEO, or any private citizen, being manoeuvred into the situation Clinton was. Not that he wasn’t a jackass
Violet
@MBunge:
No they wouldn’t. Why would you think that? CEOs lie all the time and get away with it. It’s hell to bring a sexual harassment suit and most of the time the CEO will be believed over the intern. And the CEO is the one who has the money and power to hire the big time lawyers.
Without proof, it’s nearly impossible to prove sexual harassment in the workplace.
Villago Delenda Est
Let’s see now…
Strauss-Kahn, French, sips wine, dines on Chateaubriand.
Bill Clinton, guzzles diet coke, wolfs down Big Mac.
Yeah, I can imagine who the Village will favor, there, sure thing.
Big Baby DougJ
@Violet:
Perhaps this marks me as old-fashioned and out-of-touch, but I don’t think it’s necessary to fire every person who sleeps with one of his or her employees. And almost everyone lies about their personal lives.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve Crickmore: Newsmax? A Newsmax “article” from 1998? Christ, I need to run a virus scan.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet:
One of the many reasons I was sad at the passing of David Broder.
Because it was a natural death, not the drawing and quartering the vile asshole deserved.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: Damn, you are going old school tonight.
Ian
Clenis snookered a willing intern who was white. DSK violated a non-willing maid who was of brown skin. IOKITHIB (its ok if the help is brown)
Lysana
Women are not believed on average. Women of color are believed less often. Throw in her immigrant status, and you’re talking about the trifecta of disadvantage in the situation. The DA’s office blowing the translation of her testimony was icing on the cake.
Violet
@Big Baby DougJ:
The problem with a boss sleeping with an employee is the power difference between the two. The higher-up employee may think it’s not a big deal. The lower-rung employee may think they don’t have much of a choice if they want their career to advance. It’s not the sex, it’s the power. Sex is the currency.
hitchhiker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I remember asking my friends from South Carolina about this . . . why were they not pissed off, even a little? Where I live (Seattle) anybody found out to have been such a brutal jerkoff would have been utterly cringe-worthy.
One guy told me that you’d have to be from the south to get it. Apparently at least some of the white people there have made their peace with their history of exploitation and cruelty in a way that those of us from other parts of the country will never understand.
Gotta be grateful for small things, I suppose. Not being from the south is one of them.
Violet
@Big Baby DougJ:
Also, forgot to add that most larger corporations have rules governing employees getting involved with each other, particularly when it involves a manager and someone who reports to them. So in many, if not most cases, if someone sleeps with their employee, they’re breaking their company’s code of conduct and may be fire for it.
Amir Khalid
Given the doubts raised about Nafissatou Diallo’s credibility, it was understandable that the prosecutors feared the charge would not stick. So as far as I know, they made the right call to have the case dropped.
That’s a separate issue from Dominique Strauss-Kahn being a creepy sexual predator, on the evidence of other women from back home in France. Or him being a rich, privileged white dude. It’s the lamentable way of the world that RPWDs get away with all kinds of heinous deeds, but, in the judgement of New York City’s DA, it cannot be proven that this particular RPWD did indeed do that heinous deed. I have yet to see anything more than self-righteous speculation that Strauss-Kahn used his rich powerfulness to get himself out of this jam.
NonyNony
@Ian:
Nope.
Clenis was the white-trash son of a single mother who didn’t have the right connections and was a “scholarship boy” into the Ivy League. He wasn’t aristocracy, he was a commoner.
DSK, on the other hand, is the “right kind of people”.
The Broder quote really does tell you everything you need to know about how The Village operates.
(And these days, the Clenis is accepted as the “right kind of people”. I don’t know exactly when that transition occurred – when he left office perhaps, or maybe slowly over the 8 years he was in office – but at some point he became a Villager in Good Standing rather than the guy who came in and trashed the place that wasn’t his place.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: Yes, they may be fired for it. Many of them won’t be.
Big Baby DougJ
@Violet:
Yes, I agree. But if it’s consensual, I doubt the company ever finds out about it.
Sly
Oh that Good Ol’ Strom Thurmond; America’s Second Most Beloved Racist Who Raped a Black Woman. He was just as cute as a button, he was.
Big Baby DougJ
@Violet:
Again, I agree, and that’s why it’s appropriate to have rules about this. But I suspect they are rarely enforced.
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
Sorry, the Manhattan DA, not NYC’s.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hitchhiker: I think it was Soledad O’Brien who used the phrase “heart-warming” with a simpering little smile on her face. Checking the details, Strom was just home from graduating college, Essie Mae Williams’ mother was sixteen when she gave birth.
Dood, I don’t make things up. You don’t have to with this crowd. If you were writing a novel about Washington, or Manhattan, or Winesville, Ohio, and you made up Sally Quinn, some editor would tell you the character was too much. Unless you were doing an political Arrested Development, in which case Jessica Walter would make a great Sally Quinn..
Steve Crickmore
That is surprising behavior from Strom Thurmond. I thought he only liked patting the behinds of black women.
Jenny
Days like this, when I miss Vicki Morgan.
Alex
@ Big Baby DougJ: It not only marks you as old-fashioned and out-of-touch. It also marks you as ignorant of one of the bedrocks of workplace harassment law. As Violet implies, the power differential inherent in the employer-employee relationship ensures that there can be no meaningful “consent” in workplace sexual encounters between a male superior and his subordinate. Ironically — or perhaps not so ironically — the fact that this is now a cornerstone of workplace harassment law is an achievement that progressives worked decades to enshrine. One that many predominantly (but not exclusively) male Democrats were freely willing to jettison during the Clinton Impeachment Saga. That being said, I can freely sign on to the entirety of your criticism of the handling of DSK by the MSM.
Marc
Bad people can sometimes get a bum rap, or they can be accused by a serial liar of things that they didn’t do. The impulse here is strong: accept the (initial) prosecutors case as fact, pretend that the prosecutor didn’t drop it for cause, and assume that the guy is guilty of everything. He’ll certainly be guilty forever in the minds of people who despise what he stands for.
She lied about so many things that the prosecutors dropped a high profile case. She invented other (plausible sounding) stories of being raped and then admitted that she made them up. If that doesn’t raise even the slightest chance that the guy is innocent…hell, I don’t know what will. Given his political profile at home a setup isn’t even out of the question – or maybe he’s getting away with rape. We don’t know. The assumption of guilt stinks in my book given all of this.
But we’ve been here before. Circumstantial evidence about the character of the alleged victim is (properly) not allowed, but we’re supposed to assume that this guy is guilty because others have accused him of similar things. It’s a cheap morality play, nothing more. Not gonna engage in it further, except to say that I don’t like letting the state just auto-convict people on the basis of media hype. Not when it’s some nobodies falsely tossed in jail for 18 years in Tennessee, or when it’s a rich guy in a suite in Manhattan.
Gregory
Jim Carroll Band reference FTW.
Spaghetti Lee
I’ve actually always been confused by the Strauss-Kahn case. He’s not merely French, but the head of the French Soshulist Party. Sure, that’s more mainstream over there, but since when has the media picked up on nuance like that? I thought it was going to be evidence of the Depraved Secular-Collectivist Failed State top to bottom, but not even the bottom-feeders I know who regurgitate every WSJ Editorial and CATO study mention it. I guess the order went down that he was Good People, due to being in the IMF, so hands off. Money Party and all that. Boy oh boy.
AxelFoley
@NonyNony:
The transition occurred when that Irish-Kenyan moved into the White House on January 20, 2009. Then, the Clenis became the right kind of people.
AxelFoley
@Steve Crickmore:
ROFL!
Constance
@Big Baby DougJ: thank you.
some guy
one tiny bit of good news today, Chief Vampire Squid Blankenfein has lawyered up.
Big Baby DougJ
@Alex:
Let me ask you this: if you knew someone who was having an affair with his or her boss, and that person had a “friend” who secretly recorded conversations detailing this affair, and turned it into the company against this someone’s will…you would think that was great? I wouldn’t.
Mark S.
Reading the excerpt, I can deduce that Sally Quinn was between the ages of nine and nineteen when she was groped along with her mother by Strom Thurmond. Also, because I’ve never seen a picture of Strom where the mother fucker (that’s probably a story in a different chapter) wasn’t at least 80, that adds a whole other layer of creepiness to the proceedings.
Jenny
@NonyNony:
It occurred when it was revealed in early 2008 that he had earned over $100 million in the preceding 7 years since leaving the White House.
honus
I read that Sally Quinn thing three times before I was convinced it wasn’t SP&T.
Strom Thurmond was a pig. It’s a disgrace that he is not universally vilified, let alone treated with honor.
Mark S.
Here’s a picture of Strom when he’s only, what, fifty? He looks like a washed up Bela Lugosi, about to do a scene for Ed Wood.
hitchhiker
@Alex:
I came of working age in 1968, when the help-wanted ads were still sorted by gender. That year, I wrote perfect SAT exams and was advised to choose between nursing and teaching — my best career options. The power differential that existed when the need for sexual harassment legislation prevailed had lots of roots, but it started to erode the minute it was possible to simply NOT GET PREGNANT while enjoying a measure of sexual freedom.
By the time Monica Lewinsky bragged to her friends that she was going to bring her presidential kneepads to her gig at the West Wing, the supreme court decision that made the pill available to unmarried women was more than 20 years old . . . I’m saying, the hard-fought sexual harassment laws that were jettisoned during the Clenis ordeal may have become — in some situations — an anachronism.
Anybody who watched young Monica deliver her cool, dispassionate testimony in those videotaped depositions had to wonder if this woman wasn’t perfectly capable of making an adult choice, in spite of the power differential and all that it implies.
Spaghetti Lee
Strom Thurmond was one of the first politicians I knew about. I was in fourth or fifth grade, and somehow the topic of politics came up in the classroom, and my teacher talked about Strom, about 95 years old at that point, and how he’d just sit in the Senate, falling asleep and drooling on himself. “And they keep electing him?” I asked. “Oh yes! They re-elect him every time!” And I thought, “Well, those people must be pretty silly.”
Not much has changed since then, I guess.
LosGatosCA
(And these days, the Clenis is accepted as the “right kind of people”. I don’t know exactly when that transition occurred
That would be the day his net worth hit $100M. Everyone bows to money, even a clueless, whiny, stupid, self-righteous bitch like Sally Quinn.
F. Scott Fitzgerald pegged the rich as being different, their price is higher.
Nutella
@Marc
So the character of the alleged victim Diallo is fair game (you can call her a liar) but the character of the alleged rapist Strauss-Kahn is not (you object to his previous assaults being mentioned). Not very consistent, are you?
@everyone
“She” has a name, which has been mentioned here only by one commenter. His name or initials has been mentioned here in the original post and 11 later comments. Doesn’t this strike you as at least odd and probably insulting to Diallo?
/dev/null
And these are the same people who whole heartedly embraced the Juanita Broadrick story.
suzanne
@Violet: I worked at a place where a superior put his hands on my ass and said things like, “Your tits look great today.” In front of my other co-workers. When I complained, I found out that the owner of the firm had slept with the summer intern the year before and so the guys that worked there all eagerly awaited their turn.
AxelFoley
@Mark S.:
I know, right? Was that bastard ever young? I can only picture him as a half-dead old man in a wheelchair in the Senate.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@LosGatosCA:
the price is always higher for a fine pegging.
Lojasmo
@hitchhiker:
Not sure of your situation, but if you had started nursing in 1972, you would likely be close to netting six figures now.
I love being a nurse…just saying (point taken, however).
Justin Morton
If you read Sally Quinn’s articles as satire. They are much more entertaining.
Sam Houston
After Sam Houston was baptized a friend said to him, “Well, General, I hear your sins were washed away.”
“I hope so,” Houston is said to have replied. “But if they were all washed away, the Lord help the fish down below.”
hitchhiker
@Lojasmo:
Well, I’m a huge fan of nurses, given that my mom was one and even more so that they — most of them, male and female — made life possible when my husband spent 3 months in the hospital after breaking his neck.
However, I myself would have been a truly terrible nurse (ask my spouse, who had to depend on me once he came home!), but I do pretty fair work in instructional design, which, as it turns out, pays extremely well. In any case, the point is that women in 1995 were looking at a whole ‘nother world than the one we faced back in 1970.
The Spy Who Loved Me
@Violet:
Looks like Doug has forgotten about the Mary Cunningham and William Agee saga at Bendix. He was the CEO and she was his Executive Assistant. Although they both denied a romance, she was forced to resign and he got to stay. Two years later, they married. This was something like 30 years ago. Interestingly enough, they are still married.
Rafer Janders
@MBunge:
First of all, that’s nonsense. CEOs lie all the time and get away with it.
Second of all, Clinton was not a CEO. Clinton was an elected President. They’re not the same thing at all, so whatever would or would not happen to a CEO really has very little relevance to what happens to a president who’s elected by the people and only removable from office for high crimes and misdemeanors. You can’t fire the president.
aravind
This has been up for at least three hours. Multiple comments have pointed out that the witness, Diallo, was pretty damn believable. The OP still calls her not credible, with out remotely addressing counter arguments.
This is why women don’t feel safe reporting rape. Thanks, Balloon Juice, thanks. Remind me again about how I’m a heretical firebagger for saying that Obama and your ilk aren’t liberal enough?
aravind
…and I’m in moderation. Because I dared to call this a rape? Awesome job, guys.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@aravind
You were put into moderation automatically by WordPress, and released as soon as I (possibly the only front page awake) noticed your post…
Sarah Proud and Tall
@honus:
In my version, Strom got kneed in the balls twice. My version was much more fun.
Yutsano
@Sarah Proud and Tall: You sure know how to ruin a good persecution complex.
aravind
Actually, I said that because I’d read previous comments on here that suggested that using certain words put specific comments in moderation, and (in the absence of any feedback from some one like Sarah Proud and Tall) I concluded wrongly that rape must have been one of those words (which, I think, somewhat makes sense… unless the OP actually is entirely about the subject of sexual assault).
But yes, pretend I played a persecution card, when basically the only point I made was that framing the discussion this way legitimizes terrorizing (predominantly female) rape victims, which I’m actually, well, not. Empathy! It’s a thing!
MattR
@aravind: You really think Diallo was credible? From a NY Times article today:
Sarah Proud and Tall
@aravind:
That is correct. “Rape” may be one of them. “Sh0es” and “S0cialism” and “p0ker” certainly are. But there is no political agenda behind moderation on here, as far as I can tell. Just an overzealous spam filter.
Yutsano
@Sarah Proud and Tall: Also too: if yer new yer modererated your first comment.
PS: shoes got cleared out. Last I heard.
ETA: And since that went through, that backs my theorem. Where’s my fucking Nobel?
Sarah Proud and Tall
@aravind:
I suspect (without wanting to put words into Doug’s mouth) that his point was that she was not credible as a witness in court with whom the prosecution could secure a conviction.
In his very next paragraph Doug notes that there is physical evidence that proves they had sex. Strauss Khan is the subject of many other complaints about his behavior. It’s entirely likely that a rape took place, but we will (sadly) never know because the witness had, through her other behavior, made the prosecutors’ jobs impossible.
As for how you get from that to:
is entirely beyond me. Women and women of color not reporting rapes, and the hurdles they face in the legal system when they do, are immense problems, and I don’t think you would find a front pager here who would disagree.
A front pager pointing out that a particular witness would have been torn to shreds on the stand because of her lack of credibility, and then explicitly noting that we should:
scarcely makes this place a hotbed of anti-liberal thought.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Amir Khalid: Mr. Khalid: You are quite the rational commenter, and I have to say I really enjoy reading what you have to say.
Are you sure you belong with the rest of us idjits on Balloon Juice? Perhaps you could throw a “cudlip” or two into your next comment.
Yutsano
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I’d be just as tickled if he whopped us all over the head and cussed us out in Malay. Though I fear he’s far too polite for such vulgarities.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Lojasmo: A nurse that started in ’72 would be NETTING six figures?? Net, not gross? Hell, I started as an engineer at about the same time and am barely grossing that much.
Yet another clue that I picked the wrong business to get into.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Yutsano: Getting cussed out in Malay? That would be a new one for me, and worth it just for the stories I could tell.
Signing off. I have no idea why I’m still awake since I have to be at work by 8:30 tomorrow. Ugh.
Amir Khalid
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
If I cussed out anyone here dalam Bahasa Melayu, gerenti dia takkan faham. (Although I once spent an afternoon in Tijuana. A shopkeeper heard me and the other Malaysian in my group chatting, and spoke to us in Malay; he’d done some traveling once around southeast Asia.) Besides, like Yutsano says, it’s not my way.
Ann B. Nonymous
Let me blow your mind, DougJ:
From a comment of Scott McLemee’s at the egghead blog Crooked Timber.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Sarah Proud and Tall:
Fuck you are reasonable. Way to ruin a stupid whine with actual facts, you whinypooper!
Pat In Massachusetts
It’s Sally Funcking Quinn. What did you expect? A feminist?
bob h
I hope they will release the forensic evidence against him (the semen-stained panties, the vaginal bruising, whatever) so that the public can make its own judgement.
Barry
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “There was even a story about Strom as a prosecutor “seducing” a female prisoner while he was driving her to prison to serve out her sentence. ”
While he was driving her to be executed.
I hope that Strom is burning in hell.
Barry
@MBunge: “Sadly, I’m going to spend the rest of my life pointing out that while only some corporate CEO’s would have lost their jobs for sexually exploiting an intern, every CEO on the planet would have lost their jobs for lying about it the way Clinton did.”
Only if a prosecutor was appointed to run down every rumor and deliberate lie about that CEO.
Chris
@Violet:
Good link.
As for the “this is our town” sentiment, I sometimes wonder how many of those senators, congressmen, political operatives and all the other people whose lives revolve around politics realize that there are thousands of Washingtonians right there in DC who are part of “the public,” “the little people,” “the rest of the country.” Or that it’s their town too, much more than Joe Lieberman’s or David Broder’s.
Barry
@Spaghetti Lee: “I’ve actually always been confused by the Strauss-Kahn case. He’s not merely French, but the head of the French Soshulist Party. Sure, that’s more mainstream over there, but since when has the media picked up on nuance like that? I thought it was going to be evidence of the Depraved Secular-Collectivist Failed State top to bottom, but not even the bottom-feeders I know who regurgitate every WSJ Editorial and CATO study mention it. I guess the order went down that he was Good People, due to being in the IMF, so hands off. Money Party and all that. Boy oh boy.”
He’s the head of the French ‘Socialist’ Party, one which seems to be reeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaal cozy with the neolibs, and in favor with the global elites to be appointed to head the IMF.
Not your grandfather’s socialist.
Omnes Omnibus
@bob h: Are you in favor of releasing the forensic evidence against every criminal defendant? Don’t get me wrong; I am not defending DSK, but I do not think that is any way to run a justice system.
Barry
@hitchhiker: “Anybody who watched young Monica deliver her cool, dispassionate testimony in those videotaped depositions had to wonder if this woman wasn’t perfectly capable of making an adult choice, in spite of the power differential and all that it implies.”
Perhaps you should listen to testimony in sexual harrassment cases. I’ll bet dollars to donuts that the women will not have ‘cool, dispassionate’ testimony.
Barry
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: “A nurse that started in ‘72 would be NETTING six figures?? Net, not gross? ”
Not likely at all – see the statistics. And that’s assuming that somebody who started in 1972 would still be working (or have put in 30 years). Nursing is a high-burnout profession, and would have been much worse decades ago.
Chris
@Spaghetti Lee:
My wingnut uncle, for one, leapt on it.
Really, this couldn’t go wrong for the right. Either they could go after the immigrant (strike 1) Muslim (strike 2) woman (strike 3) complaining about sexual harassment (strike 4) by a rich and powerful man (strike 5), and they could rail about “these people,” creeping Sharia, and feminism ruining the lives of helpless rich-and-powerful people…
Or they could go after the French (strike 1) Socialist (strike 2) who led a powerful international organization (strike 3) and the point was that those faggy socialist one-worlder elitists think they can get away with anything.
Most of The Village went with option 1, my wingnut uncle and some others I’m sure went with option 2. Why it happened that way was anyone’s guess.
Chris
@Spaghetti Lee:
My wingnut uncle, for one, leapt on it.
Really, this couldn’t go wrong for the right. Either they could go after the immigrant (strike 1) Muslim (strike 2) woman (strike 3) complaining about sexual harassment (strike 4) by a rich and powerful man (strike 5), and they could rail about “these people,” creeping Sharia, and feminism ruining the lives of helpless rich-and-powerful people…
Or they could go after the French (strike 1) Soshulist (strike 2) who led a powerful international organization (strike 3) and the point was that those soshulist one-worlder elitists think they can get away with anything.
Most of The Village went with option 1, my wingnut uncle and some others I’m sure went with option 2. Why it happened that way was anyone’s guess.
Chris
@LosGatosCA:
This.
In the old days, nobility and royalty used to look down on the bourgeoisie, the ugly little people whose only accomplishment was money but who had no titles, no family lineage, no castles in the country… But, a hell of a lot of these ugly classless little bourgeois were able to buy their way into the nobility anyway, because as you yourself put it, everyone bows to money.
Marc
The New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/nyregion/strauss-kahn-case-should-be-dropped-prosecutors-say.html?_r=1&hp
The letter from the prosecution laying out the reasons for dismissing the charges:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/22/nyregion/dsk-recommendation-to-dismiss-case.html
Exerpts:
—————————————-
The document laid out how prosecutors went from characterizing Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s accuser as a credible woman whose account was “unwavering” to one who was “persistently, and at times inexplicably, untruthful in describing matters of both great and small significance.” Because eventually prosecutors could no longer believe her, they wrote, they could not ask a jury to do so.
Prosecutors said they had accumulated enough evidence to show that Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who was managing director of the International Monetary Fund at the time of his arrest, “engaged in a hurried sexual encounter” with his accuser, a housekeeper at the Sofitel New York, a hotel near Times Square.
Because none of the evidence established force or a lack of consent, the motion said, the case would hinge on the testimony of the woman, Nafissatou Diallo.
Ms. Diallo’s account of what happened during and after the alleged assault began to develop inconsistencies, however. Even more troubling to prosecutors was what they said was a “pattern of untruthfulness” about her past.
That included a convincingly delivered story of being gang raped by soldiers in her native Guinea; she later acknowledged that she had fabricated the story, and prosecutors characterized her ability to recount a fictionalized sexual assault with complete conviction as being “fatal” to her credibility.
Another issue was that she had denied that she was interested in making money from the case, despite a recorded conversation that prosecutors said captured her discussing just that with her fiancé, a detainee in an immigration jail in Arizona, shortly after the encounter in the hotel.
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I hope that anyone who doesn’t see the prospect of actual innocence here never serves on a jury.
PurpleGirl
@Nutella: It has been standard journalistic practice not to name a victim in reporting a rape story for many years. Her name was first published, IIRC, by the NY Post and it was not done as a sign of respect for her. Even though her name is being used now, I still see it as a privacy issue for all other victims who may really want/need that privacy. DSK has been talked about for many years as a predator; I won’t worry about respect for his privacy.
Steve
At the end of the day, DSK lost his high-powered job over the accusation and Bill Clinton kept his. This seems relevant to a discussion of whether Clinton got the short end of the stick, but strangely, no one has even pointed it out.
DKF
Ok, as a post-conviction defense attorney, I’m going to dissent from the overwhelming tone of this thread. The presumption of innocence is the bedrock of our criminal justice system, and we ignore its significance at our great peril. I don’t like the rich and powerful getting away with bad acts at the expense of the poor and powerless any more than the next person, but by the same token I don’t like the mentality that presumes that in any given dispute the wealthier and more powerful individual is in all likelihood the victimizer. As passive consumers of news, we really don’t know squat about the case and have no business glibly passing judgment on guilt or innocence. DSK may well be guilty, but that’s not our call. We’re engaging in a polite form of mob justice here, and that is unworthy of educated American citizens in the 21st Century.
Chet
In light of the fact that almost all of what supposedly harmed her credibility was invented by the prosecution, and the ample physical evidence of rape, no, there’s really not much of a realistic possibility of evidence. The idea that the case is being dismissed because of Diallo’s “credibility problems” is circular, since those problems were created by the prosecution leaking statements that she didn’t actually make.
The case is being dismissed because prosecutors didn’t want to prosecute DSK. That’s all.
Marc
Let’s see – no evidence of force at all (read the prosecutors letter), changing her story about what happened after the alleged assault, admitting that she had invented sexual assault charges in other contexts…what about these things was “invented by the prosecutors?” Repeatedly lying under oath in other matters too – did the prosecution invent that?
If you’re trying to send someone to prison on someone’s word, it becomes relevant that they lie a lot, do so convincingly. and have already done so under penalty of perjury.
Stefan
@Chet:
You have absolutely no basis to conclude that “almost all of what supposedly harmed her credibility was invented by the prosecution.” The fact is that before this case even began, she was on the record with an asylum application that referred to a gang rape in her homeland that never actually occurred.
Now, many immigrants understandably lie during asylum applications, but we can’t pretend that someone who lied once about being raped in order to get a material gain is, after that, the most credible witness when it comes to another rape accusation. The prosecution would in effect be telling the jury “OK, she lied that time but she’s not lying this time”. Does that rise to the level of proof beyond a reasonable doubt? The mere fact of the previous false rape story creates reasonable doubt in itself.
Stefan
@PurpleGirl:
Since she’s now filing a civil lawsuit against Strauss-Kahn, there’d be no way to keep her name private anymore. Rape shield laws don’t apply when the woman herself files a civil suit against her alleged attacker.
jibeaux
This is a weird case to me, because I agree that it doesn’t seem like prosecutors could show force beyond a reasonable doubt. But at the same time, there is DNA, which IIRC was spat onto the carpet, between this man and an immigrant hotel maid he didn’t know from Adam, which means there is some kind of a story there. And there isn’t a version of that story that I can think of that is better than WJC’s story.
Thymezone
If you thought figuring out David Broder was a tough assignment, just wait until you try figuring out the logic behind the Law of the Sex Police.
You will know you have figured it out when you can explain how bashing gays is evil and satanic, until the gay person is a Republican and bashing him has political advantages. Then it’s okay with most BJ commenters. Because, you know, shut up, that’s why.
This Law is not for the faint of heart or mind. Don’t rush your analysis. Take all the time you need.
Chet
“Not having ever lied even once in your life” is a standard required for no witness except for a woman making an accusation of rape. And we don’t know the gang-rape didn’t happen; we know only that prosecutors have stated that she admitted to lying. Bur they also stated that she admitted making the accusation up for the money, and that turned out not to be true.
Stefan
“Not having ever lied even once in your life” is not a standard required for a woman making an accusation of rape — however, “not having ever lied even once about being raped” is a standard that will come into play when prosecutors ask a jury of twelve strangers to assess a witnesses’ credibility when it comes to another accusation of rape.
Stefan
@Chet:
Re “And we don’t know the gang-rape didn’t happen; we know only that prosecutors have stated that she admitted to lying.” I know several people in the sex-crimes unit of the various NYC DAs offices; it’s generally not their habit to impugn the credibility of their own witnesses, for rather obvious reasons. Why would a prosecutor — who wants to get a conviction — make up the fact that their own witness is lying? For what purpose?
brian gister
I don’t suppose it’s possible in this case:
“The very next day he was offed by the very same bikers.”
Chet
To get the charges dropped. Even when they were leaking her supposed statements about doing it all for the money, they were talking about how they were going to drop the charges.
Ever since this hot potato fell in their laps they’ve been scrambling for a way not to take DSK to court for rape. They’ve simply invented whatever basis it took to impugn Diallo’s credibility as a basis to drop the charges. Will there be any charges against Diallo for filing a false complaint? Will DSK attempt a countersuit in civil court? Just you watch – neither of those things will happen, because all parties involved (except, of course, the victim) will thank their lucky stars it didn’t come to a courtroom.
Chet
I mean, let me ask you this. Quick, without Googling it – what’s the name of the prosecutor on this case?
You don’t know, do you? I don’t, either. That’s a bit strange, isn’t it? I mean, credibility “issues” aside this should be a case that, if won, would make a career, right?
So the flaw in your thinking is your presumption that the prosecutor is out to win this case. What’s abundantly obvious is that the prosecution is looking to get the hell out from under this case as fast as possible, without it being connected to him or her in any way in the public eye. Hence the almost immediate scramble to impugn Diallo’s credibility as a pretense to dismiss all charges.
DKS is, obviously, guilty as hell. The bruising, the DNA evidence, the obvious flight from the scene of the crime. But everybody knows that the only men who can be convicted of rape are the ones who have no power or influence.
BattleCat
BattleCat finds it quite inconvenient that a man accused of rape might be innocent.
Stefan
To get the charges dropped. Even when they were leaking her supposed statements about doing it all for the money, they were talking about how they were going to drop the charges. Ever since this hot potato fell in their laps they’ve been scrambling for a way not to take DSK to court for rape.
Yes, ambitious prosecutors in NY often scramble to drop cases against powerful white men who’ve victimized an immigrant black woman, especially when those men are foreign and have no natural allies in NY. Makes perfect sense. The DA just loves offending New York voters this way.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chet: The why the fuck would they have brought charges to begin with? It would have been easier to just say they didn’t have enough evidence to secure a conviction.
Marginalized for stating documented facts
As for Bill Clinton and lying — folks, everyone lies about sex.
Everyone.