Thomas Sowell makes a point…

The New Neo Posted on by

…that occurred to me a while ago, but I haven’t seen anyone but Sowell make it:

Secretary of State John Kerry, and other members of the Obama administration, are saying that the alternative to an agreement with Iran is war. But when Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactors, back in 1981, Iraq did not declare war on Israel. It would have been suicidal to do so, since Israel already had nuclear bombs.

There was a time when either Israel or the United States could have destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities, with far less risk of war than there will be after Iran already has its own stockpile of nuclear bombs.

So far I’m in complete agreement with Sowell. Here’s where I start wondering, though:

Indeed, the choice then will no longer be between a nuclear Iran and war. The choice may be between surrender to Iran and nuclear devastation.

My questions is: whose nuclear devastation? It all depends on how rational the Iranian leaders are, versus how apocalyptic. Do they want weapons to use them, or just to intimidate everyone into capitulating to their demands (as we seem to be doing at the mere threat of their getting them)? Do they really think that if they destroyed Israel with a nuclear bomb or two, Iran wouldn’t be destroyed as well? Or is that the Armageddon they want to trigger, because they think it’s ordained they’d be the ones to win? To what extent do they see this as a cosmic rather than an earthly battle? How about bombs and terrorists, or Russia, or any of the other nuclear powers?

In other words, does Mutually Assured Destruction have any meaning for the Iranians? Or does that figure into their goals?

Watching the powerful “speak truth to power”

The New Neo Posted on by

No, they’re not just talking to themselves: “The Alinsky way of governing.”

Makes you wonder why the MSM didn’t expose the fact that Obama was an Alinskyite, what that meant, and why it was something to worry about.

Just kidding. Most members of the press were/are fully on board, and they don’t think there’s any chance the crocodile will ever eat them.

Will the real Iran deal please stand up?

The New Neo Posted on by

The true head of Iran speaks. And what a great negotiating partner he is:

Khamenei accused the Obama administration of “lying” about the proposed terms, being “deceptive,” and having “devilish” intentions, according to multiple published accounts of his speech, as well as posts on his official Twitter feed.

Khamenei also disputed the key terms Obama administration officials have said were agreed upon in principle. Economic sanctions will not be phased out once Iran’s compliance has been “verified,” according to the Ayatollah. Instead, Khamenei said that if the U.S. wants a deal, then all sanctions must be dropped as soon as the agreement is finalized. Khamenei also put strict limits on the reach of the inspectors who would be tasked with this verification process in the first place.

What contempt they must have for Obama. Reminds me of the contempt their predecessors had for Carter, only more so.

I wrote “predecessors” in the previous sentence, but actually Khamenei represents an unbroken link to his predecessor Khomeini and was his right-hand man and became Iran’s president under him in 1981. We’re not talking ancient history, after all; the revolution was in 1979. Under Khameini/Khomeini rule the Iran/Iraq War occurred, and the regime also murdered thousands of internal opponents. Khomeini was really in charge at the time, but Khamenei seems to have been on board, too, with the exception of disagreeing with Khomeini about whether to take the war into Iraqi territory after the Iraqi forces were driven from Iran.

People keep talking about what Rouhani wants and what Rouhani intends, but very few people seem to think Rouhani has the real power, anymore than one of his most liberal and conciliatory predecessors, Khatami, did (yeah, I know the names are confusing).

Obama, of course, has his own reasons for denying these realities. Meanwhile, it becomes ever more clear that right now the “Iran deal” is not just a bad deal or a good deal or an in-between deal but a Potemkin deal: a hollow false-front, meant to impress but having no reality behind it.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

[NOTE: Here’s what I wrote on the day of the deal announcement:

My prediction, for what it’s worth: a big to-do will be made about the historic deal. But this is a cover for the fact that no real agreement was reached. Both sides have a huge interest in convincing their own public that they won great concessions and that the talks have been a success. They will be described that way by both sides, as will any agreement in June, if it is reached. Nothing important will be done to effectively stop Iran…

See also this.

I would actually prefer that the deal be a good one. I’d prefer that Iran had suddenly seen the point of joining the community of nations as a respectful, rational, thoughtful, non-aggressive player. I see no reason to believe it has.]

Was Hillary Clinton selling political favors?

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, well, well:

Unless of course the timing was purely coincidental, IBT’s report indicates the Clinton Foundation accepted money from a Colombian oil company while Clinton was serving as Secretary of State. After procuring the donation, Secretary Clinton then decided to support a Colombian trade agreement, though she’d vocally opposed it during the 2008 election cycle.

More—much more—here.

This is similar to the sort of thing that Sen. Menendez was indicted for—only the charges against Menendez were on a much smaller scale, involved a long-time personal friend, and with no particular evidence of any quid pro quo. But don’t sit on a hot stove till Hillary is indicted—unless, of course, Obama is very serious about wanting her out of the race.

The University of Michigan changes its mind

The New Neo Posted on by

The University of Michigan will go bravely forward and show the movie “American Sniper” after all:

“The initial decision to cancel the movie was not consistent with the high value the University of Michigan places on freedom of expression and our respect for the right of students to make their own choices in such matters,” the statement [by E. Royster Harper, University of Michigan’s vice president for student life] said.

Methinks it far more likely that the amount of ridicule to which they were exposed as a result of their original decision to cancel may have caused them to re-evaluate things. They had thought the expedient thing to do was to cancel the movie, and now they think it more expedient to reinstate it.

Go, Michigan!

Dick Cheney takes it pretty far…

The New Neo Posted on by

…but not quite far enough

Here’s what Cheney said about President Obama:

HEWITT: Is [Obama] naive, Mr. Vice President? Or does he have a far reaching vision that only he entertains of a realigned Middle East. That somehow it all works out in the end.

CHENEY: I don’t know Hugh. I vacillate between the various theories I’ve heard. If you had somebody who, as president ”” who wanted to take America down. Who wanted to fundamentally weaken our position in the world, reduce our capacity to influence events. Turn our back on our allies and encourage our enemies, it would look exactly like what Barack Obama is doing. I think his actions are constituted in my mind are those of the worst president we’ve ever had.

Well, it’s only what the blogosphere has been saying for many, many years (I wrote this piece about it in 2009, for example). But still, we’re bloggers and Dick Cheney is, well, Dick Cheney.

Of course, that means that Cheney’s already considered by the left to be the Little Satan to G.W. Bush’s Great Satan (or is it the other way around? I can’t get it straight). So Cheney can act as the mouthpiece for what some of the other Republicans feel they can’t quite say (much as Giuliani did a while back, with the “Obama doesn’t love America” bit).

I’ve long thought that “one of the worst presidents in our lifetime” or “one of the worst presidents ever” were inadequate for Obama. Cheney goes further and says “the worst president.” Period. So why do I say that Cheney didn’t go far enough? Because there’s no comparison to any other president we’ve ever had. Bad as the worst one was, he and the others were over on one side of a line, and that side involves having America’s interests at heart rather than looking to weaken and sabotage it. No other president has even come close to “wanting to take America down…fundamentally weaken our position in the world, reduce our capacity to influence events.”

He’s not just the worst president. There’s a Grand Canyon-sized gap between him and any other president we’ve ever had.

Clarification: the rule on shooting fleeing felons

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “cantinflas” asks a question:

I’m not going to defend this cop shooting 8(?) times at a guy’s back, but what is the precedent you’re trying to set here, Neo?

Are you claiming that if you’re not an “extremely dangerous felon” and the police are trying to detain you, if you get away from the cop, are unarmed, and have your back turned to the cop, you have the right to get away scot free? Basically, you’re saying if you can Run Away from a cop, you can get away with any crime because any effort to stop your pursuit using a weapon is unlawful and wrong.

Actually, what I’m saying is that this is obviously too much firepower considering the offense and the situation. Period. The confrontation they had had wasn’t violent (as it was described, anyway), his offense wasn’t at all serious, he was fleeing, and the guy shot 8 times, hitting him 5.

But I’m not applying my opinion; I’m talking about the law. In this case, I happen to agree with the law, as well. Here are the rules:

The Supreme Court held in a 1989 case, Graham v. Connor, that the appropriateness of use of force by officers “must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene,” rather than evaluated through 20/20 hindsight.

That standard is designed to take into account that police officers are frequently asked to make split-second decisions during fast-evolving confrontations, and should not be subject to overly harsh second guessing…

A seminal 1985 Supreme Court case, Tennessee vs. Garner, held that the police may not shoot at a fleeing person unless the officer reasonably believes that the individual poses a significant physical danger to the officer or others in the community. That means officers are expected to take other, less-deadly action during a foot or car pursuit unless the person being chased is seen as an immediate safety risk.

In other words, a police officer who fires at a fleeing man who a moment earlier murdered a convenience store clerk may have reasonable grounds to argue that the shooting was justified. But if that same robber never fired his own weapon, the officer would likely have a much harder argument.

“You don’t shoot fleeing felons. You apprehend them unless there are exigent circumstances ”” emergencies ”” that require urgent police action to safeguard the community as a whole,” said Greg Gilbertson, a police practices expert and criminal justice professor at Centralia College in Washington state.

That’s the reason the condemnation of Slager was strong from all quarters, including the police.

Police always have to make split-second judgment calls, and that can be extremely difficult. It’s part of the job, however. They should not be hampered from doing their job, but neither are they given carte blanche to be trigger-happy.

You can tell people to never fight or struggle with an officer, and not to defy him or mouth off. Wait till you get a lawyer and have the lawyer defy him and mouth off, if necessary. That’s common sense and good advice. But a lot of people, especially those who are in any sort of trouble with the law (including relatively minor trouble, such as Scott’s) are going to try to flee. You don’t want cops killing them all. There are ways to determine when it is okay to shoot and when it is not okay to shoot, and unless there are some huge surprise revelations in this case, it clearly should have been a “not okay to shoot” case.

Slager showed awareness of this when he—as has been reported—appears to drop something near Scott’s body in the video, after the shooting. If he was planting evidence (the taser?), it indicates awareness of guilt and an attempt at a coverup.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty on all counts

The New Neo Posted on by

Guilty on all thirty counts, seventeen of which carry a possible death penalty.

This is no surprise whatsoever. The penalty phase, in which the defense will try to make the case that he was under the influence of his evil older brother (now conveniently dead), will be interesting. Even though it’s Boston and Massachusetts, a very liberal place, I think the heinous nature of his crime might just get him a death penalty, although whether it would actually be carried out is anybody’s guess.

I don’t buy this “under the influence” business. I think Dhzokhar Tsarnaev was acting nder the influence of the fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a murderous and cold-blooded psychopath (or sociopath, take your pick). I wrote about that here:

Reading Cleckley [on psychopaths], and then reading the Rolling Stone piece [on Dzhokhar], one can’t help but be struck by the similarity between his friends’ descriptions of Dzhokhar and Cleckley’s descriptions of psychopaths. Many of Dzhokhar’s friends were deeply puzzled by the cool, chill, laid-back Jahar’s [Dzhokhar’s nickname] participation in the bombing, and theorized that his more conventionally depressed, angry, and jihadi brother Tamerlan must have “turned” him or controlled or brainwashed him in some way to have accounted for Dzhokhar’s going along with such a violent and cold-blooded act.

Most people would find it hard to believe that Tamerlan, the more ideologically motivated of the pair, could really just say to his brother, “Hey, want to help me bomb people at the marathon?” and that Dzhokhar would say, “Sure, why not?” But if one studies psychopaths, it is much easier to see how that could really be the case. There is no need to postulate some sort of terrible psychological trauma for Dzhokhar, nor any particularly deep influence or mysterious control Tamerlan had over him, if Dzhokhar is a psychopath. It may have just seemed like a good idea to Dzhokhar at the time, and he had no inner core of morality to stop him…]

Our Lost Constitution

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a book that sounds tremendously interesting. Disclaimer: I haven’t read it. But I was in the car last night and happened to catch an interview with its author, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, and was impressed.

From a review at Amazon from Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett:

Senator Mike Lee knows how to tell a story. Combining historical fact and his own legal expertise with imagined dialogues and settings, Lee brings the sometimes dry and archaic debates of the constitutional convention in Philadelphia and other episodes to life, and with them the Constitution itself. This is truly an inspired, fascinating, and important book.

Another sign of the continuing decline of the American university

The New Neo Posted on by

This headline caught my eye: “Univ. of Michigan Cancels ‘American Sniper’ Screening, Made Students ‘Feel Unsafe’.”

At first I thought it was some sort of objection to a film about a sniper and war, although I’m pretty sure other films with bloody themes have been shown on campus, and that “American Sniper” is hardly the most violent. What sort of fragile flowers have American students become, if they couldn’t even view a war film?

But I was wrong; that’s not what the controversy was about. It’s about a Muslim protest:

The signers were mostly students, but also some staff, as well as the Muslim Students’ Association and the president of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, a Palestinian solidarity group at UMich.

The online memo, titled a “collective letter from Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim students on campus,” accused the public university of “tolerating dangerous anti-Muslim and anti-MENA propaganda” by showing the movie, the highest grossing film of 2014…

“Chris Kyle was a racist who took a disturbing stance on murdering Iraqi civilians,” the collective letter stated. “Middle Eastern characters in the film are not lent an ounce of humanity and watching this movie is provocative and unsafe to MENA and Muslim CollectiveLetter students who are too often reminded of how little the media and world values their lives. ”¦ The University of Michigan should not participate in further perpetuating these negative and misleading stereotypes.”

Among other things, that’s not a correct description of the movie and its attitude towards its Iraqi characters and the deaths of civilians. But hey, who cares about correctness when you can have political correctness, by far the most important kind?

I will leave without comment the fact that the film was replaced by the movie “Paddington Bear.”

Here’s more on the decision to cancel, which seems to have been made by something called the Center for Campus Involvement, which apparently was the organizer of the event:

“American Sniper” was set to be shown as part of the center’s “UMix Late Night” program, which brings movies, games, dances and other social events to the student body. The center is responsible for more than 300 co-curricular programs each year, including cultural and educational programs, films, art exhibits, UMix Late Night, athletic/spirit activities and various performance groups and concerts, its website states.

“We in the Center for Campus Involvement and the UMix Late Night program did not intend to exclude any students or communities on campus through showing this film,” the center’s announcement stated.

“”¦ UMix should always be a safe space for students to engage, unwind, and create community with others, and we commit to listening to and learning from our community in the interest of fostering that environment. ”¦ We will take time to deeper understand and screen for content that can negatively stereotype a group.”

I said I wouldn’t comment on the choice to run “Paddington,” but curiosity got the better of me and I watched the trailer. It made me feel very unsafe, not to mention revolted. The first scene here? Disgusting! And if the trailer is any evidence, I do believe it portrays bears as very stupid:

Shot in the back

The New Neo Posted on by

A white North Charleston police officer was arrested on a murder charge after a video surfaced Tuesday of the lawman shooting eight times at a 50-year-old black man as the man ran away.

Walter L. Scott, a Coast Guard veteran and father of four, died Saturday after Patrolman 1st Class Michael T. Slager, 33, shot him in the back.

Five of the eight bullets hit Scott, his family’s attorney said. Four of those struck his back. One hit an ear.

The footage filmed by a bystander, which The Post and Courier obtained Tuesday from a source who asked to remain anonymous, shows the end of the confrontation between the two on Saturday after Scott ran from a traffic stop. It was the first piece of evidence contradicting an account Slager gave earlier this week through his attorney.

The video is both disturbing and unequivocal. Whatever transpired beforehand, it seems clear that the victim was running away, and that there was no reason for the officer to imagine he had a gun or that he was threatening the officer. Did the officer think, as he had alleged earlier, that Scott had taken his taser? Perhaps:

The three-minute clip of Saturday morning’s shooting starts shaky, but it steadies as Slager and Scott appear to be grabbing at each other’s hands.

Slager has said through his attorney that Scott had wrested his Taser from him during a struggle.

The video appears to show Scott slapping at the officer’s hands as several objects fall to the ground. It’s not clear what the objects are.

Scott starts running away. Wires from Slager’s Taser stretch from Scott’s clothing to the officer’s hands.

With Scott more than 10 feet from Slager, the officer draws his pistol and fires seven times in rapid succession. After a brief pause, the officer fires one last time. Scott’s back bows, and he falls face first to the ground near a tree.

If a person grapples with a police officer without any sort of physical attack and perhaps gets a taser from him (perhaps not) and then starts running away, with his back to the officer, I don’t see how there can be any justification for the officer to shoot that person in the back, unless perhaps if the person is some sort of extremely dangerous felon (is a convicted murderer in the act of escaping from prison, to take an example). Nothing of the sort was happening here; Scott’s rap sheet (which Officer Slager may or may not have looked up during the traffic stop, depending on how far into it he was when the incident occurred) was relatively mild:

He had a history of arrests related to contempt of court charges for failing to pay child support. The only accusation of violence against Scott during his lifetime came through an assault and battery charge in 1987.

Charged but not convicted, over 24 years ago.

Slager says he “felt threatened.” Whether or not that’s true is unknowable at this point; it goes to Slager’s state of mind, which will be an issue when he faces murder charges. But the more important question now is whether he had objective reasons for feeling threatened, and it seems clear that the situation provided no justification for those feelings except to the very easily threatened.
And if someone feels that easily threatened, he or she has absolutely no business being a police officer.

A couple more observations:

I continue to believe it would be best if all officers wore body cameras. Even though in general I’m uneasy with the increasing documentation of every aspect of our lives, police camers would help all around to discourage bad behavior on all sides, and to get a better idea of the truth when something goes terribly wrong.

What if there had been no video at all?

Chris Stewart, an attorney for Scott’s relatives, also questioned during the family’s news conference whether Slager would have been charged.

“What happened today doesn’t happen all the time,” Stewart said. “What if there was no video? What if there was no witness? … This wouldn’t have happened.”

We’ll never known, of course. But I think he would have been charged. In this case the ballistic and autopsy evidence would dictate it. The man was shot in the back many times. I am not conversant with all the cases of police killing someone where there have been accusations of wrongdoing on the part of the officer, but as far as I know, if the person is shot in the back, forensics would reveal it rather easily and the officer is likely to be charged. That is exactly the sort of evidence that was lacking in the Brown/Wilson case, and in fact evidence of the opposite helped to exonerate Wilson (as did the eyewitness testimony).

I tried to find cases in which police officers had shot someone in the back while that person was fleeing and yet were exonerated. I haven’t been able to locate one, but I did find a very recent case in which the officer was indicted and is awaiting trial. In the James Ashby case, the suspect wasn’t fleeing; in fact, it appears the cop had pursued him to his home, and the policeman was off-duty.

Here’s a description of what had happened in the Ashby case. As far as I can tell, the victim was Hispanic:

…[W]hen a police officer on the job for five months stopped a 27-year-old resident skateboarding along the main drag, followed him to his home and shot him dead last fall, Rocky Ford’s residents were shocked and angry…

Officer James Ashby was charged with second-degree, non-premeditated murder after an investigation led by law enforcement from surrounding communities and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation…

Ashby told investigators that Jacquez mouthed off to him when he stopped him skateboarding on U.S. Highway 50. Ashby said he thought Jacquez was trying to burglarize what turned out to be his own home because he walked erratically before heading toward the home’s back entrance. Gallegos said break-ins have been on the rise in the town of about 4,000 due to a rise in heroin addiction…

However, the brother of a police officer who was on a ride-along with Ashby that night, Kyle Moore, contradicted Ashby’s account. He said Jacquez did not talk back to Ashby and walked straight from the street to a side entrance to his house, where his mother opened the door for him.

Ashby said Jacquez grabbed a baseball bat and was about to swing it at him when he fired. The coroner found that Jacquez was shot in the back, not a position he would be in if he was winding up for a swing.

An autopsy found that the shot passed through Jacquez’s spine, instantly paralyzing him. Ashby said Jacquez took another step or two before collapsing as his mother watched, leading Dr. Daniel Lingamfelter of the El Paso County coroner’s office to conclude that Jacquez was already moving away from Ashby when he was shot.

The contradictions and forensic evidence led state investigators to conclude that there was enough evidence to arrest Ashby.

No video in that case. But the autopsy had made it clear that Ashby’s story was very fishy, and he was charged with murder as a result.

Note that most of use have never heard of the Ashby case. I think it failed to become a cause célé¨bre, despite its outrageousness and the fairly clear evidence of wrongdoing by the officer, because the victim was not black.

There is no way to tell whether Slager’s actions had anything to do with the race of the victim, Scott. But it is an indisputable fact that Slager is white and Scott was black. Rest assured that many people will draw the conclusion that the killing was racially motivated.

[ADDENDUM: I see that the mayor has called for all police to wear body cameras. Good. I’m astounded that it hadn’t been the policy earlier in a city as big as Charleston.]

My latest PJ article: Too good to fact check

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s my new article for PJ. It deals with the report by the Columbia Journalism School on the infamous and bogus UVA gang rape story written by Sabrina Erdely and published in Rolling Stone. Here’s an excerpt from my piece:

Erdeley and the editors appear to have jettisoned those time-honored procedures for reasons that were most likely both ideological and self-serving: the story was a perfect fit for their pre-existing biases about campus rape and its perpetrators, and the tale was so sensational that it could practically guarantee them a record number of readers.

In other words, it was far too good to fact check. The author and editors lost sight not only of the need to do so, but of how obvious the story’s deficiencies would be.

[ADDENDUM: Erdely’s and Rolling Stone’s problems shouldn’t end with the UVA story, either. I’ve confined my own posts to that particular article of Erdely’s, because opening up the wider topic of her other stories and my suspicions about them would make for too long a tome.

But anyone who’s done much research on Erdely has probably come up thinking that she may be a serial offender. As a warm-up for background on just how deep Erdely’s deceptions went on the UVA story, please see Richard Bradley, who has been excellent on the topic of Erdely and the UVA article from the very start. Pay special attention to point #10, but just read the whole thing.

Now go to Leon H. Wolf at RedState for a description of another time when Erdely may have used the very same m.o. in writing a story, and for the very same purpose. Wolf’s piece begins with this reflection:

One of the painful things the New Republic was forced to undertake whn [sic] it first came to light that reporter Stephen Glass had fabricated certain details of his stories was to go over all his stories with a fine toothed comb to determine exactly how systemic the problem had been with Glass’s reporting. After all, a reporter who faked details in one or two stories might well have done so in others. To TNR’s credit, they promptly performed an exhaustive, line-by-line review of each of Glass’s stories over the years and laid bare the gruesome results for the world to see, exposing that the infractions for which Glass was eventually caught were only the tip of the iceberg, and that fabulist reporting by Glass was the rule, not the exception.

But that was so Twentieth Century. This is the 21st, dude, so there’s no need:

Rolling Stone has shown absolutely no inclination to engage in a similar soul searching over whether Ms. Erdely might have engaged in similarly shoddy reporting in the past, and whether such shoddy reporting (if it exists) might have slipped through their fact checking and editorial system. Ms. Erdely by all appearances has not been professionally disciplined at all for her blunders and the Rolling Stone brass is acting as though this is an isolated incident in which they were blameless victims of an exceptionally clever con artist.

Wolf goes on to describe the similarities between the UVA article and a previous piece Erdely wrote that appeared in—you guessed it—Rolling Stone, called “The Rape of Petty Officer Blumer.” I had read that article of Erdely’s, as well as several other pieces questioning its veracity in the wake of the UVA article, back in December when the UVA story first broke and unraveled. The two Erdely stories were very similar in terms not only of the tale told, but of Erdely’s agenda and her journalistic techniques. There were hundreds of vulnerabilities in the Blumer case that Erdely never really confronted, and I had expected that a larger investigation would have been launched by now into Erdely’s entire journalistic output, because the Blumer tale is not the only other fishy part of it (see this, for example).

That hasn’t happened. Columbia has kept to its assignment, which was limited to the UVA story and its wretched excesses.

I had also expected Erdely to be fired by now, and to never be able to work as a journalist again. Once more, I was wrong. Someone has to expose this further, because it is getting more clear every day that both Erdely and Rolling Stone have almost certainly been doing this for some time, and that they probably won’t stop now. The Columbia report gives the impression it was an isolated incident, and that is unlikely to have been the case.

And I don’t think the practice is limited to Erdely and Rolling Stone. They just got caught because their offenses were so glaringly obvious, and the story so sensational that it got an enormous amount of attention. If they’d just been a bit more subtle they would have gotten away with it.]