When I first read Duke-in-Wonderland, I thought that, no matter how abrasive and judgmental he was, Johnson must have been fairly close to the mark with his take on many of those he singled out as extremists. But when I scratch the surface what I find is misreading, misrepresentation, cheap shots, and character assasination. If you can point out what I've missed or why I should believe a word he writes anyways, please do.

As you probably know, James Coleman–the shining exception to the general rule about Duke faculty–cowrote a letter to the Duke Chronicle last October criticizing Johnson and Taylor for a "tragic rush to judgment" in their broad condemnation of Duke faculty. Johnson dismissed Coleman and Kasibhatla's criticism with the same kind of blustery evasions that he's used to write off every other objection to his crusade. I've found no sign that he or any of his loyal readers even paused to consider in light of Coleman's criticism. If you're as wedded to the story as they are, nothing that I say is going to change your mind. But I think you're more flexible than that.

One thing you're wrong about is that on Johnson's site "professors' own words are quoted at length, and in context." Sometimes they are, I'm sure, but he has a very poor record when it comes to context. He sees what he wants to see and manipulates facts and quotes to make sure his readers see exactly the same thing. I've laid out several cases in detail on my blog.

I don't have to take your word for the subjective part–I also live at Durham and teach part-time at Duke. It's absolutely true that many people around here went overboard in their reactions, and reflexively cast the lacrosse team as representatives of all that's wrong in the world. I've been critical of that in my blog, as well. My feeling is that the vibe you're talking about is mostly generated by extreme voices (people who put flyers on telephone poles, for instance).

For me personally, it's Johnson's Duke-in-Wonderland, that gives off a strong vibe. It's a cartoon world staffed by good guys and bad guys, with nobody in the middle. It's not a reflection of reality as I know it but of Johnson's impoverished imagination and agenda-driven analysis. It must be awful for your wife to work at such a depressing institution. I have very mixed feelings about the school where I've been teaching for almost 10 years, but it's a much more interesting place.

On those points, Johnson is absolutely correct. Those Duke professors (with a tiny number of exceptions like Coleman) who weren't silent presumed guilt and said far worse than that, about their own students, when to be charitable they were completely ignorant of the facts (in the first month), or when they should have known better (after the first month). The administration, in its tolerance of this, its own statements, its expulsion of a student/player for the offense of merely writing a tasteless email, and its firing of Mike Pressler, was complicit in this professorial misbehavior or worse.

I don't need to rehash specific incidents because the professors' own words are quoted at length, and in context, on Johnson's blog and in the book he wrote with Stuart Taylor. Readers who are curious can go to the blog and read for themselves, but I will add one thing that doesn't come through the internet, about subjective impressions.

I live very close by Duke, in a neighborhood full of Duke professors, and my wife works in their library. This is the subjective part where you're just going to have to take my word for it. The "vibe" I gleaned from conversations with these people, flyers posted on telephone poles, and myriad other little details at Duke was one of unquestioned guilt. The case was emblematic of race and gender relations, privilege, and oppression in Durham and throughout the South.

No doubt Durham and the South have a terrible history regarding race relations and class issues, and the whole world does regarding gender issues, but this case (as it actually was, not as it was portrayed at the time) was not emblematic of anything, because nothing happened except that a gang of drunk kids said some rude things to a pair of strippers who'd gypped them when one of them showed up drunk and high and later decided, based on God knows what psychopathology she suffers, to confabulate a rape case out of it.

If you doubt, take a look at my blog. Or, to put his book and the case in perspective, track down the fine review of his book in the Nation online, sometime in early March.

To put it another way, while I deplore the way the case was handled by the county (of which I'm a resident), the university (where my wife is employed), and the media, I know that a substantial part of the outrage this case drew was from people who would have been hollering loudly for blood had the defendants looked more like the sort who typically appear in superior court.

Those are some of the loudest adherents of Dr. Johnson's blog.