Red State has a great article up on Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the fabulist who made up the rape hoax story for Rolling Stone. I phrase it that way as the only other option is that Erdely and her coevals at Rolling Stone had some sort of collective psychotic episode. There’s simply no way people in possession of their faculties did not know it was a fake story.

It turns out, Erdely may have been guilty of the same journalistic errors she committed in reporting the UVA rape story on at least one other rape story that garnered national attention at the time. The story in question was published in 2013 and was titled “The Rape of Petty Officer Blumer.”

Erdely’s reporting of the Blumer story is eerily similar to her reporting of the UVA story. In each case, Erdely uses a central figure who has a similar tale to tell: she was a victim of a horrific rape, she reported the rape to authorities, and her concerns were ignored and/or used against her. The narrative in each case is used to advance the theory that the institution in question (college administrators in the UVA case, military command in the Blumer case) is indifferent to the problem of systemic sexual assault occurring right under their noses. In both cases, the stories read suspiciously as though Ms. Erdely arrived at her conclusion before writing her story, and simply set out to find the first person who would constitute a credible vehicle for the narrative she wanted to create, without regard to the factual accuracy of her story. Recall that during the initial investigation of the UVA story it was uncovered that Erdely had sent emails indicating that she was looking for a story that fit a particular fact pattern – it would be no surprise to discover that similar emails existed in this case.

RedState has now spoken with multiple members of Navy command who were either personally involved in the investigation of Ms. Blumer’s allegations or who had firsthand knowledge of the facts of this case. For obvious reasons, their names have been withheld to protect their identities. However, it seems clear that, if Ms. Erdely’s story concerning Petty Officer Blumer were subjected to the same scrutiny as the UVA story, it might well come unraveled just as quickly.

The key fact from these conversations is this: Everyone I spoke to in connection with this investigation was crystal clear that at no point did Sabrina Erdely or Rolling Stone ever contact them whatsoever, even to ask for background information. This is exactly the same lapse in journalistic standards that doomed the UVA story and ultimately led to its retraction. The fact that it occurred in this story is indication of a systemic problem with Rolling Stone and Sabrina Erdely’s reporting, not of a single lapse in judgment.

Frankly, the writer at Red State is being far too kind. There’s a pattern with these people that is well established. They steal a little here and a little there as a short cut. They eventually figure out that the editors are not checking their work that closely. That means they start doing fake reporting and fake research rather than the real thing as it is easier and tends to make for better copy.

The other thing we always see is it happens where the publication is uniformly progressive. The faker starts writing tales they wish were true, getting pats on the head from their coreligionists in management, because they want to believe these stories too. The reason no one upstream from Erdely questioned her work is the fake stories confirmed what they were inclined to believe.

That’s the piece not getting enough discussion. Erdely and her enablers either think this stuff is true, or they hate you so much they are wiling to accuse you of horrific crimes. It is not hard to understand why decent people volunteer to shove people into death camps. People like Erdely are far willing to declare others as outside the human family. That inevitably leads to monstrous acts.

Read the whole Red State piece. It is top notch stuff.