So Nifong is gonna recuse himself, finally. This will no doubt make a lot of people happy but I think they will be missing the point if they think that the problem here is Nifong.
I have told people over and over from the beginning of this case that this wasn’t simply a matter of a rogue prosecutor, but a rogue ideology. People have been trying to get their head around why Nifong would pursue such an obviously bullshit case and have fallen back on the explanation that Nifong was doing it to promote himself to get elected. But that explanation doesn’t hold water. In fact, Nifong’s treatment of this case got him more problems in the DA race than it otherwise would have.
The fact is, what has driven Nifong in this case was ideological fanaticism. Pure and simple. Even at the end, he can’t bring himself to admit he was wrong. Here is what his lawyer said to the NY Times:
“He feels very disappointed that he can’t go on for her,” said David B. Freedman, Mr. Nifong’s lawyer in the ethics case. “Mike at this point, as a result of the bar complaint, doesn’t want to be a distraction to the case or take away from the prosecution of the case, which the witness still feels very strongly about.”
Nifong, like all “white liberals” (Of course they aren’t “liberals” any more than Stalin was) suffers from the sort of self righteous delusions that are more commonly associated with religious fanatics. They set themselves up on a moral pedestal then, having concluded that they are the Righteous Few, decide that anyone who disputes them is Evil.
I suppose someone at this point will start talking about Jerry Falwell and the”religious right,” but there is an important distinction: Everyone knows Jerry Falwell is a religious guy. Whatever one thinks of them, we at least know where the fundamentalist Christians are coming from. the problem with the ideology known colloquially as “liberalism” is that it is a fusion of Christian theology and marxism. It is an ideology that takes its moral imperatives from Christian tradition in support of a vile political philosophy and disguises itself as a purely political movement.
This disarms people because the liberal adherent isn’t pounding a bible, though they often do make references to Christian sentiments. It is a psycho dynamic that I doubt most liberals are themselves even aware of.
Seen from this perspective, it is clear that Nifong, the former hippie and conscientious objector, isn’t really the problem. The problem is the noxious world view that he shares with many other white liberals in America, especially Durham. It is a vile, self righteous, contemptuous, and viciously hateful world view which sees most whites as evil and they, the Righteous Few, as noble defenders of the downtrodden against the vile depredations of their fellow whites.
From the beginning, Nifong described the defendants as “hooligans” whose “daddies” would “buy them big-time lawyers.” This was before he even knew anything about the case. Clearly this was a man in the grip of a powerful and reflexive emotional impulse. Like a horse with the bit in his mouth, he was beyond reason. For him, this was a case right out of the most fevered liberal imagination. It was, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Black Like Me,” and “I know why the Caged Bird Sings” all wrapped up in one. A case of pure concentrated black pathos.
Finally, THE case had come. Nifong would get to prosecute White People in the case of Caucasia vs the Long Suffering and Noble People of Africa. This would validate not just Nifong’s world view, but Nifong himself. After all, he could now put on a noble, self-sacrificing air, and explain that it was opportunities like this that kept him in the (relatively) dead end job of Assistant DA for so long.
Now his life, like his case, is crumbling about him. In a just world he would be disbarred and sent to bust rocks somewhere. here in Bizzaro World though, Nifong has a better than even chance of getting off with just a slap on the wrist.
That’s because most of the people who will be judging him are just like he is. They are liberal True Believers. In fact, they probably envied Nifong at first. Like Nifong, this was the case they dreamed of. A chance to play the Great White Hero defending a poor black defendant against the Old White Boy network. In their view, the only thing Nifong did wrong was to be a tad TOO eager.
So even though Nifong will be gone the Duke defendants can’t count on reason to prevail. It really isn’t over until the next DA finally drops ALL of the charges, and they will be loathe to do that. The liberals want something out of this, anything, that will validate their world view, anything that will allow them to declare victory. Nifong will go, but the mentality that created him will continue to hang around like thick smog in downtown LA. That mentality is the mental psychosis known as liberalism.
