In a post on his blog, ABC’s Terry Moran has posted one of the most insipid, offensive analyses of the dismissal of the charges against the Duke Three that I have seen. Moran’s analysis, in a nutshell, is that the three lacrosse players are not entitled to the sympathy that has been directed toward them because, he claims, they are white and affluent, becauase their behavior on the night in question was reprehensible even if not criminal, and because other criminal defendants are exposed to the same injustices every day. I was inclined to post a detailed refutation of Moran’s idiocy, but then I saw John Podhoretz’s post on National Review’s “The Corner.” Podhoretz does a fine job of shredding Moran’s “analysis.” So, in the last few days, we have learbed a few things. That Crystal Mangum is a liar and that Mike Nifong was her enabler. That even left wing talk show hosts like Don Imus can say stupid racist things. And that even jerks like Terry Moran can get jobs with a network news outfit. Moran owes an apology to the Duke lacrosse players. Just don’t wait for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to force the issue.
Update (4/14/07 at 6: 11 PM EDT): Will Bunch, who writes the “Attytood” blog for the Philadelphia Daily News, posted this takedown of Moran yesterday. By my estimation, the overwhelming majority of commentators, bloggers and blog commenters agree that Moran was out of line. I would suspect that the idiot posted his dreck solely for the purpose of generating controversy and getting people ton read his sorry blog. Of course given that Moran is generally an idiot, its always possible that he really believes the pure nonsense that he wrote.
A fire Terry Moran petition, which he keeps editing out of his blog on the “Dukies”:
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/FireTerryMoran