"Heroic" Duke lacrosse case blogger, K.C. Johnson, is a Democrat

[pnwmom]

who got involved because he was upset to see so many Duke A & S faculty assuming the students' guilt. Interesting interview here.

http://www.chicagosportsreview.com/inprint/contentview.asp?c=190716

KC Johnson is a 38-year-old bowtie-wearing Brooklyn College professor with a Harvard degree. He has a passion for American history, and he enjoys the classroom. And due to his own peculiar mixture of annoyance and curiosity, he might be the most oft-cited source for those looking for coverage of what could formerly be called "The Duke Rape Case."

SNIP

The some 1,000 words a day that Johnson has pumped into DurhamWonderland.blogspot.com since last March-and the countless hours of research it has taken-was all spawned by a beef with his peers in the business of educating. The issue was this: he couldn't understand why a massive group of Duke professors, now dubbed "The Group of 88," would come out with an ad in the student paper proclaiming their solidarity with the apparent victim of a rape by members of the Duke lacrosse team, when not only had little evidence been collected, and few articles written, but the accused athletes had yet to state anything in their own defense. Johnson couldn't believe that professors would condemn their own before anyone really knew the truth. And as the truth has come out, and the espisode has thus become a case study in recent legal travesties, Johnson has continued to discuss it all. Mostly on his blog, and seen, in a book.

SNIP

You've stated that you're a Democrat. When you began the blogging, were you surprised by critics calling you a right-wing nut? Did that make you re-examine some "right-wing nuts?"

Oh, absolutely. You have to. It's odd. You see groups that you saw before as unabashedly positive, like the NAACP, act the way they have, and your thinking has to change. You say to yourself, if I'm a supposed right wing nut, then 90 percent of the people in this country are too. This didn't surprise me in some ways though. One of the issues I've really pushed is more attention to the history of the American state. Looking at that, you know there's a tendency among activist-left in the academy to just brand anyone who disagrees with them as a right wing-nut. It works, and it's hard for them to give up that stance. … Put it this way: before this case started I had never seen defending civil liberties as a right wing position.

SNIP

[Lex]

1. Nifong's a Democrat too. Almost everyone in Durham is.

Heck, the Repubs have a hard time fielding any candidates to run locally.

[pnwmom]

2. I think the fact that Nifong's a Democrat is part of why he once had so

much support on these boards. In addition to all the pumped-up news stories.

[Solo_in_MD]

3. We tend to judge people by their party affilication rather than their words and deeds

ignoring Zell Miller and others

[pnwmom]

4. Yeah, and when we do that,

we're acting like the people we most despise.