Drudge had this linked this morning. It says a lot about this age that so many things get deliberately erased from the official record, only to pop back up later. It speaks to the new power of the media, thanks to the communication revolution, but also to their vulnerability, due to the communication revolution. They have these huge megaphones they can use to obscure stories they don’t like, by trumpeting the stories they do like. On the other hand, the internet never forgets, so even the obscure can be found.

In this case, it was well known at the time that the crime was not what the New York Times claimed. They massaged the facts to fit the prevailing worldview among their readership. They may have even believed their own nonsense, as these people are true believers. They had all the bogeymen right there in the story – rednecks, flyover country, western outfits. Shepherd, of course, had the right look. Liberals prefer their homosexuals to be of the twink variety, not the bear variety and white, of course.

It all made sense to the hive mind of the New York Times readership. When skeptics questioned the veracity of their claims, it was easy for them to dismiss the critics as right-wing homerphobes. The stock of words that means “heretic” is useful in allowing the Left to dismiss anyone who questions their claims. One of the benefits of moral certainty is when you get push back from non-believers, it feels like confirmation. The Left believed the fiction version of this story and got the spiritual hit they crave.

Now there is a book from a professional homosexual challenging all of the claims made by the Progressive media. The evidence is pretty clear that the three men knew one another and they were drug addicts. They certainly did drugs together and maybe sold drugs together. One of them was certainly gay or at least bisexual. The murder was the result of the same stupid stuff we see every day from the lower classes. Drugs, money and sex are almost always the reason someone ends up dead in the ghetto.

In this case it looks like a combination of drugs and sex. Three druggies that may have been homosexuals, with one another or separately, got into a dispute involving drugs and one of them ended up dead. In other words, remove the homosexuality from the mix and no one cares about this story. The fact that the victim was probably a gay gives the Left license to filling the official narrative with facts about this case. It’s an great example of how the news is just agit-prop, with very little connection to reality.