MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: Why It Was Right To Scrutinize The UVA Rape Story.

Back in the 1990s, a dean at Vassar College told Time magazine that a false accusation is not only an acceptable price to pay, but might even benefit the falsely accused: “[The wrongly accused] have a lot of pain, but it is not a pain that I would necessarily have spared them. I think it ideally initiates a process of self-exploration. ‘How do I see women?’ ‘If I didn’t violate her, could I have?’ ‘Do I have the potential to do to her what they say I did?’ Those are good questions.”

There is, though, one point on which everyone can hopefully agree: if Jackie’s story proves to be false (or a dramatic overstatement of a still terrifying trauma), the damage done to those fighting the scourge of campus sexual violence will be incalculable. Because if accusations are never met with circumspection, prepare to see an increase in those who believe that all accusations are untrustworthy.

When you know that there’s an entire infrastructure of people willing to support a lie if it advances a narrative, it’s reasonable to be skeptical of any story they put forward.

CREATING NEW DETROITS: Victor Davis Hanson: Ripples Of Ferguson. “Just as the ethics reformer in the White House has left a legacy of unprecedented presidential scandal, so too the racial healer has presided over the greatest erosion in racial relations in the last half-century. That is the lesson of Ferguson — and the Fergusons to come — and the backlash outrages to the Fergusons to come — and on and on and on.”

MOE LANE: “It’s not demographics, and it’s certainly not gerrymandering, and shoot, it’s not even Barack Obama. It’s that the people who run the Democratic party [expletive deleted] hate the South. And Southerners have noticed.”

FROM THE COMMENTS OVER AT ACE’S some Pearl Harbor Day thoughts.

During the 3-1/2 years of World War 2 that started with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and ended with the Surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945, “We the People of the U.S.A.” produced the following:

22 aircraft carriers,
8 battleships,
48 cruisers,
349 destroyers,
420 destroyer escorts,
203 submarines,
34 million tons of merchant ships,
100,000 fighter aircraft,
98,000 bombers,
24,000 transport aircraft,
58,000 training aircraft,
93,000 tanks,
257,000 artillery pieces,
105,000 mortars,
3,000,000 machine guns, and
2,500,000 military trucks.

We put 16.1 million men in uniform in the various armed services, invaded Africa, invaded Sicily and Italy, won the battle for the Atlantic, planned and executed D-Day, marched across the Pacific and Europe, developed the atomic bomb, and ultimately conquered Japan and Germany.

It’s worth noting, that during the almost exact amount of time, the Obama Administration couldn’t even build a web site that worked.

Ouch.

IT’S COME TO THIS: After apology, Rolling Stone changes its story once more.

Plus: WaPo’s Erik Wemple: Updated apology digs bigger hole for Rolling Stone. “Rolling Stone now acknowledges that not checking with the other side was a mistake, though the abandonment of common sense and journalism merely starts with this critical omission. . . . Again: Fire the Rolling Stone editors who worked on this story.”

I imagine that the lawyers for Rolling Stone are putting a lot of pressure on Jackie to remember the right things. . . .

PHOTOS: Inside The Pearl Harbor Attack.

BRENDAN O’NEILL: Rape Culture And The Ivy League Lynch Mob.

At Columbia, I was startled by some of the mob-like invective falling from the mouths of otherwise bright, well-read students. One group of female students said “the rapist” must be expelled. But he hasn’t been found guilty of committing rape, I said. “We know he committed the rape,” one said, with the kind of steely-eyed conviction that recalled (admittedly in a much less lethal context) how KKK members once “knew” that their black victims were guilty of raping local white women.

A male student told me my insistence that individuals suspected of a crime must be fairly tried and found convincingly guilty before we ruin their lives — and being expelled from a prestigious university for rape would undoubtedly be life-ruining — was evidence that I had fallen for the “liberal paradigm” of justice, which tends to benefit white, well-off men.

Yes, I imagine by current standards the whole Scottsboro Boys thing was an example of true gender justice.

DON’T SEND YOUR DAUGHTERS TO THESE LEFTY SCHOOLS: “Mass Rapes” At UC Berkeley. Or your sons.

IT’S BAD WHEN THE STATE OF MARYLAND IS THE GOLD STANDARD: A Citizen Confronts The Federal Bureaucracy. Of course, states compete for LLC registrations; the federal government faces no similar competition.

IT’S TRUE, THEY DO: Daniel Hannan: Leftists become incandescent when reminded of the socialist roots of Nazism.

AT AMAZON, Get the Kindle Fire HD7 for $134 ($25 off). Also, get the Fire HD7 Kids’ Edition for $159 ($30 off).

Plus, up to 60% off on coats, jackets, and more.

WELL, THIS IS STUPID: Alabama State Senator: Defining ‘journalist’ may become necessary.

Freedom of the press is essential. Freedom of the press is important to me. Freedom of the press is not going anywhere in Alabama.

With the national explosion of partisan political blogs and shady, fly-by-night websites offering purposely skewed and inaccurate interpretations of hard news events, I recently asked the Secretary of the Senate to put together a definition of what qualifies as a legitimate journalist. . . .

Just as elected officials are accountable to the people they represent, so, too, are journalists accountable to an editor.

While a free and open press is vital and necessary, there are some who are attempting to hijack the profession by promoting raw political agendas from the confines of the press gallery. This is not freedom of the press, it is deceitful and wrong.

I acknowledge that in today’s rapidly changing media world, it is more complicated to determine who should and should not be considered a legitimate journalist.

To that end, I have asked the Alabama Press Association to assist the Senate staff in determining a proper definition of what constitutes a journalist meriting access to the press room.

Uh huh. Granted, this is only press-room access but (1) it’s not like traditional journos aren’t partisan operatives; and (2) this is a slippery slope.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE: Sex victim con artist deported after police spend $150,000 investigating false claims. “An immigration board hearing heard city police and health officials spent weeks and over $150,000 this fall investigating Azzopardi’s spurious claims she was the victim of prolonged sexual abuse before realizing the woman — who Ireland’s media described as a ‘Walter-Mitty-like con artist’ — had spun a similar web of lies to law enforcement officers in that country a year ago.”

OOPS: This year’s flu virus a poor match for this year’s flu vaccine. Maybe I should lay in some Tamiflu.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Could An Asteroid Strike Knock The Moon Into The Earth? More like a planetoid strike.

AT AMAZON, featured Digital Deals.

Plus, the Men’s Denim Store.

Also, 60% or more off on Hunting & Tactical Knives.

MEDICAL PRIVACY In Our Biologically Upgraded Future. I guess the upside is that by now, there’s not much left to lose.

WHO OWNS the Biggest Biotech Discovery of the Century? “There’s a bitter fight over the patents for CRISPR, a breakthrough new form of DNA editing.”

NOT-SO-DIRTY JOBS: What It’s Like to Be an Uber Driver in a $500,000 Rolls Royce.

RICHARD BRADLEY LISTS people who should apologize for calling critics of the UVA rape story sexists.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 577.

I’M GOING TO GO WITH “YES” ON THIS ONE: Terry Bean sex charges: Should national media pay more attention to Democratic fundraiser’s arrest? (Poll).

TECH MOGULS and the TNR meltdown.

Plus: TNR cancels December issue after mass staff resignation. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a magazine canceling an issue, except in WWII when there were paper shortages.

But my favorite take is this one:

TOM MAGUIRE NOTES SOME RATHER DRAMATIC REVISIONS to the WaPo story on the Rolling Stone rape debacle. These changes don’t make Rolling Stone look any better, but suggest that there may be something in there somewhere. Maybe.

UPDATE: Readers note that the changes are also consistent with a liar who keeps changing the story to make it more dramatic. True.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rolling Stone Quietly Changes Its Rape Story Apology. “A note that initially said the magazine “misplaced” its trust in an alleged gang rape victim was edited Saturday to say the ‘mistakes are on Rolling Stone.'”

When contemplating a libel defense, you don’t want to be crossways with your only source.