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http://washingtontimes.com/sports/20040903-121721-6156r.htm
Mark Hurlbert expressed his unyielding belief in Kobe Bryant's accuser one
last time after dropping the sexual assault charge against the NBA All-Star.
Oh, spare us. Take your self-serving spiel elsewhere. Leave the maudlin
violin music out of it.
This so-called victim wasted a lot of people's time and a lot of
taxpayer money with her dubious claim against Bryant.
Let's not cry for her. Let's cry for the Colorado taxpayers who paid for
the incompetence in Eagle County. Let's cry for the genuine victims of rape
who might be inclined to stay quiet after following the Rocky Mountain
circus. Let's cry for those wrongly accused men who lack Bryant's resources
to defend themselves.
Don't tell America how the woman has been victimized by the system.
She played the system, is what she did. She played Bryant as well.
This is not to suggest Bryant is an altar boy. He is a self-admitted
adulterer who bought his wife a $4 million rock as penance. He is hardly
clean in this sordid affair. He thought he could have a fling with this
emotionally unstable, sexually adventurous tart in Colorado, and it blew up
in his Nike-perfect face.
But being an adulterer is a Grand Canyon-size leap from being a rapist.
Adulterers end up in divorce court. They do not end up having to hire a
big-time law firm because of the scurrilous charge of a woman who is lugging
around an unsettling percentage of the male population's DNA in her panties.
Talk about a rush to judgment, starting with the Keystone Kops of Eagle
County who were incredibly eager to take the word of the white woman over
the black celebrity.
So Bryant initially lied to police about the affair. News flash: That is
what most men do if confronted with their amorous activities outside a
marriage.
The prosecutors compounded the initial missteps of the police, either by
not doing their investigative homework or ignoring it.
This woman is said to attempt suicide every other week, is fond of pills
and sleeps around as sport.
This is your star witness in a he-said, she-said case?
This is the person on whose shoulders you are planning to hang a
national case?
It was never a case. It was never about seeking justice.
It was about the dollar bill in the accuser's case. It was about
small-town prosecutors looking to make a career move. And perhaps, on some
level, it was about race - the cliche of the poor, helpless white woman
being victimized by the powerful black man. Who knows what lurks in people's
hearts sometimes?
This is what you do know, and what so few want to discuss: You have a
woman who beds down this or that guy in the county. Yet in the mega-watt
presence of Bryant, she suddenly became virginal. Not only that, but Bryant,
who probably could land a good percentage of the female population with a
wink, became Mr. Hyde.
To believe the prosecution's case, you had to believe in the theory of
the sudden virgin and Mr. Hyde.
Bryant is a mixed bag of things: an adulterer, a team-killing ball hog
who blew up the Lakers, the most gifted player in the NBA and perhaps even a
sexist boor around women.
None of that lends sustenance to the woman's contention.
Forget his apology to the woman, too. That was his playing of the
get-out-of-this-nightmare card. Who wouldn't be scrambling to write a series
of halfhearted words after being put through this highly public ordeal the
last 14 months?
All too many observers expressed dismay with the courthouse that
inadvertently released the woman's name and medical history, which was fair
enough.
But in terms of being scrutinized to an ad nauseam level, it was no
contest. Bryant took a beating. Given the unsatisfying outcome, he merits an
apology from the woman and the bozos of Eagle County, which won't ever
happen.
Instead, with a civil suit pending, Bryant will wind up giving the woman
the shopping-spree money she so desperately wants, if only to be truly free
of the mess and to assure her silence.
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