The Left's Disregard for Truth

Heard about Lena Dunham?  I hadn't.  Apparently she's an actress (HBO, etc.) and leftist activist.  She wrote a book wherein she claims that she was raped by a prominent Republican named "Barry" while in college at Oberlin (in Ohio--my wife and I went to a Shakespearean play there when in college).  I know a guy who once taught there--it is a bastion of leftist indoctrination.

Well, journalist John Nolte has been investigating the matter.  After all, if Barry is still out there, he's likely to rape again.  If Barry is not out there, then a man named Barry who used to go to the school and is now being regarded with suspicion will be exonerated.

Turns out that there's just no evidence that Barry--as described by Dunham--exists (if we can trust Nolte which seems plausible).  Read the whole thing, but in case you don't, I'll provide below what I take to be an excellent example of the left's disregard for truth in favor or their narrative.  What follows is truly amazing (but not at all surprising).

Setup: Nolte wants to go to the radio station on campus, since "Barry" allegedly hosted a show called Real Talk with Jimbo (according to Dunham's book).  He asks to check the archive to search for any evidence that there was such a show.

The conversation that ensues when put in contact with the station manager is telling:

At first, Ms. Hess was pleasant and eager to help. She informed me that there are physical archives of the station's program guides. It would take some time to go through them, she explained, but if WOBC did in fact broadcast "Real Talk with Jimbo," the information should be there.

With the understanding that I would be supervised, I volunteered to do the work of going through the records myself and offered to shift my schedule in any way that was convenient. She replied that she would be happy to do this work and then inquired into the specific details of the story we were working on.

This transcript is based on memory and extensive notes taken during the call:

"An Oberlin graduate, Lena Dunham, wrote a memoir where she claims she was raped as a student here. We're checking into the details of the story," I told her.

"I heard about that but didn’t know it involved the radio station," she replied.

"Yes, according to Dunham her rapist hosted this radio show."

"Are there other stories you have written about this that I can read?"

"Quite a few [I gave her the website address and my name again]. You'll see we're a right-of-center outlet, but you'll also see that unlike some others we haven't questioned the veracity of the claim. We looked into what could still be done to get the rapist off the street. It's still possible to press charges, but as far as we know, Dunham isn't going to do that. Now the story is at a point where we need to check the details. If this guy exists, we need to find him. If he doesn't, we need to know that
."

"What you're looking for," Ms. Hess informed me, "could create a conflict of interest on campus regarding sexual assault."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"People here are less interested in justice for this kind of crime and more interested in helping the victim. I'm not psyched to help you do this."

"You can look at everything I've thus far written about this. We just want to know the truth."

"Asking whether or not a victim is telling the truth is irrelevant," Ms. Hess proclaimed. "It's just not important if they are telling the truth. If this person had wanted criminal justice they would have pursued it."

"I'm not just talking about criminal justice," I responded. "The details in the book point to a specific individual."

"Who graduated years ago."

"This man is easily found using Google and says he's innocent. Right now everyone is looking at him and he's just twisting out there."

"Our archives are private. We have no obligation to share them with anyone. I don't want our organization to be a part of this. I'm the general manager and the answer is no."

And with that, Sophie hung up.

The next morning, my first stop was an early morning visit to Oberlin's media relations department. No one was available. I left my card and on it a few details about the story. Later that afternoon, I received a voice mail from Scott Wargo, Oberlin's Director of Media Relations. In my return message I related what had happened with Ms. Hess and said I would still love to have access to those archives.

That call was not returned.

A general online search and search of the archives of the school newspaper came up with nothing about a radio show called "Real Talk with Jimbo."