Sob Story

I'm a liberal. Give me a sob story, and I'll sob, but this story is still too hard to sob over unless I squeeze some lemon juice in my eyes. After all, when blacks attack whites, the solution is to jail 'em. Right? R-I-G-H-T? At least Epstein is still free. He can enroll in a less-tony law school somewhere else:

Last month the left wing blog, One People’s Project, posted a story about one Marcus Epstein. Within this story it was reported that two years ago next month Marcus assaulted a black woman in Georgetown calling her the “n” word.

That blog and its hundred spinoffs then got to the juicy part of the story: Marcus Epstein is executive director of The American Cause, founded by Pat Buchanan and of Team America, founded by Tom Tancredo.

...What happened next was a modern day lynching by a faceless, angry, ignorant mob who reveled in the collective assault on their victim. They had wounded an adversary and drawn blood -- without pausing to ask how so talented a young man could have found himself in such a mess.

...While his intelligence and ability were evident, Marcus had serious problems. He drank to excess and suffered periods of deep depression. One Sunday early in 2007 Marcus called and asked if he could come to my home to talk. He was afraid of what he might do if he were alone another minute.

...Early one Saturday evening, several months later, I received a call from a friend of Marcus’. “Marcus is in jail,” he told me. The two of them had gone to Georgetown to have a drink before joining others for dinner, he explained. When they left their drinking hole, however, Marcus was completely intoxicated, nearly incapable of walking. It was then that the incident occurred.

Marcus was arrested and released that same evening. Unable to face this new level of disgrace and failure, he went to his office where he drank to make the pain go away -- for good. He was hospitalized for a week. His parents flew into town, conferred with Marcus, his doctors and his friends. It was clear. Marcus urgently needed professional help.

...As for the assault Marcus was charged and a plea bargain was worked out.

It took Marcus a year after this incident to start thinking about a future. He took the LSATs and was accepted at the University of Virginia Law School on early admissions. The presence of a strong recovery community was one of the reasons he chose UVA and was ready to move to Charlottesville next month.

But the Left doesn’t care about any of this. They kept moving this little tidbit, watching it ricochet around their shallow world in the blogosphere, until it landed on a popular site for incoming law students. There individuals who claim they’re interested in carrying-out justice in this world saw to it that Marcus paid again for his offense. With nothing but a skeleton of a story they initiated a campaign targeted at UVA’s Admission Office. And they won -- Marcus will not be attending UVA Law School in the fall.

Marcus Epstein is one of the bravest young people I have ever known. He deserved a second chance -- as do all of us.