Duke lacrosse rape hoax accuser’s confession teaches a lesson the left won’t learn

The left can’t stop hitching its narrative to bogus stories.

Late last week, Crystal Mangum — the accuser at the center of the notorious Duke lacrosse rape hoax — admitted for the first time that she lied about being brutally assaulted by David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann at a party in 2006.

From prison, where she’s serving time for murdering her boyfriend in 2011, Mangum asked for the three men’s forgiveness: “I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong.”

She’s not the only one who should be groveling: At the time of the trial, Evans, Finnerty and Seligmann were mercilessly dragged through the mud by rabid progressives with an ax to grind.

The players had the audacity to be well-off, white and male: The media responded like sharks to a bucket of chum, framing the young men as vicious, racist, misogynistic monsters.

Duke professor Houston A. Baker, Jr. decried the “drunken white male privilege loosed amongst us.”

District Attorney Mike Nifong proclaimed them guilty and the crime racially motivated months before even interviewing Mangum. (He was later disbarred for withholding evidence that showed no DNA from any of the three men was found on the victim.)

When the three were exonerated, there was no self-reflection from the out-for-blood hoax enablers, much less a mea culpa.

Don’t expect one now: Progressives, in and out of the media, have learned nothing.

On Dec. 5, migrant teen Yeremi Colino was fatally stabbed during a street fight in Manhattan and another teen was wounded; initial reports claimed one of the assailants asked “Do you speak English?” before the attack.

A narrative immediately emerged: This was a xenophobic, race-motivated murder, prompted by right-wing coverage of the border crisis.

New York Post front cover on April 12, 2007.
New York Post front cover on April 12, 2007. NY POST

Rep. Dan Goldman called the attack “racist, xenophobic hatred;” tech CEO Anil Dash blamed white supremacy; former Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou said the teens were stabbed “because they couldn’t speak English.”

Media coverage zeroed in on the language line and reported it as a possible hate crime.

But then the news broke that Colino had ties to the Tren de Aragua-linked Los Diablos de la 42 gang while the suspects were black and the whole thing was a likely gang beef — and there were crickets from the progressive peanut gallery.

The cherry on top: There’s no evidence the “Do you speak English?” line ever happened.

This is a never-ending cycle — partial facts or half-truths surface, the left pounces on it as proof that America is a racist, bigoted country, and then the story gets debunked.

So will the progs who always reach for the rage-bait apologize? Will they wait for all the information next time?

Not a chance.

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