Justice, justice shall you pursue

The holidays are over and I'm back.

Two things to talk about and both have to do with justice denied and delayed.

The first, of course, is J. Donald Imus and his big mouth. Boy, if people had talked about Iraq and paid as much attention to our entrance into that war as they have about Don Imus acting like Don Imus, we'd be able to tsk tsk from afar about the problems the Iraqis are having.

Look, nobody to the left of the Ku Klux Klan is excusing Imus' comments to the Rutgers University women's basketball team. I won't repeat them here. They were horrible, unfeeling (especially since this team had just lost their dream of being national champions), wrong, bad, sexist, racist and stupidest. It doesn't matter if Imus thought them up or Barnyard McGerk thought them up.

Is the reaction also over the top? In some quarters, it is.

Imus deserves all the public humiliation that his bosses, the team and we can heap on him. But I see a little hypocracy in the actions of some who are demanding his firing from his radio program.

For example, we don't need the Rev. Al Sharpton, the hero of the Tawana Brawley case, poking in his nose.

Imus made these kids feel bad, but unlike Brawley, he didn't lie to cover his butt and attempt to ruin the careers of law-enforcement people to cover up a tryst with a boyfriend. Nobody has ever heard any apology from anyone involved in the Brawley case to anyone who was harmed. Sharpton still owes an apology to Steven Pagones, an assistant district attorney in Dutchess County, N.Y., who was accused of raping the 15-year-old girl and, along with up to six other men, smearing her with feces and writing racial slurs on her body. Brawley said that one of six white men who brutally tortured her had flashed a badge.

According to the Feb. 17, 1988, Poughkeepsie Journal, Brawley implicated Dutchess County Sheriff Frederick W. Scoralick. She also reportedly identified Pagones as one of the attackers.

However, a 1988 grand jury concluded that Brawley made up the story of being abducted and raped. It also exonerated Pagones and others, calling the incident a hoax.

In the meantime, Pagones suffered public and private hell, as well as unnecessary financial expense. Sharpton, the spokesman for Brawley and her lies, has never apologized, although he and two lawyers were found liable in a civil trial and ordered to pay damages. As usual, Sharpton didn't have to put his hand in his pocket. His judgment was paid by Johnnie Cochran and others.

Until Sharpton apologizes, he needs to shut up about others saying they're sorry.

Now, for justice delayed.

Of course, I'm talking about the Duke University lacrosse team members who have gone through hell because of a false accusation of rape and other sex crimes, as well as kidnapping.

For those hiding under a rock, a stripper accused three members of the Durham, N.C., university's men's team of raping her at a booze and strip party.

Yes, these kids were stupid for having a booze party and hiring two strippers.

That being said, this woman made up her story out of whole cloth. And Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong ran with it in order to get re-elected in November.

So, what now? North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper has said the young woman, the Duke Deceiver, will not be prosecuted. After nearly ruining the lives of three guys who were guilty of nothing more than having a drink and seeking a couple of women take off their clothes, she gets off absolutely free.

So do the eighty-some professors who were so anxious to get on the political-correctness bandwagon. The team coach was hounded from his job, the season canceled and these kids put through psychological and fiscal hell. The profs, the Dook administration just say "Sorry", or not even that.

Whom do these three students see about their justice denied? They were trotted out in handcuffs, while this bimbo gets protected and concealed. Where's Al Sharpton when these absolutely innocent kids need a spokesman to demand justice, or Barak Obama or Jesse Jackson or any of these others who demand that Don Imus be fired.

Yes, Imus said something incredibly stupid and hurtful, but didn't do anything that was going to get three guys with a lot to offer society thrown in jail for thirty years.

Justice, just shall you pursue.