From my research, it appears that CBS News named Crystal Gail Mangum and showed her picture. (Of course, this being CBS, the picture may have been forged.) But the only time her name came out on CNN was by non-CNN employees during live press conferences and one time when a guest slipped it in -- you should pardon the expression -- during a discussion of Nifong's disbarment hearing, unaware of CNN's policy of protecting the names of women who make false accusations of rape.

The New York Times has yet to name the woman who falsely accused three men of committing a brutal gang rape.

The Times "public editor" described the paper's delusional coverage of the Duke case after the first several weeks as "basically fair." The Times Sports editor, Tom Jolly, said he was "very comfortable" with the coverage, saying the case had two main elements: "One was the allegation of rape; the other was the general behavior of a high-level sports team at a prestigious university." That's when you know your newspaper might have a wee hint of a liberal bias: when even the sportswriters are left-wing crackpots.

Apparently, the Times editor did not see this possibility as an "element" of the case: A liberal prosecutor incites a racial conflagration weeks before an election in a heavily black voting district by using the incredible claims of a stripper to falsely accuse three innocent white men of gang rape.

After the dust clears, perhaps we can expect a Mary Mapes-type book from Nifong explaining how the rape really did happen after all, or a book from Joe Conason on how the people who brought Nifong down were a conspiracy of "Nifong-haters."

You can't win a victory like this without some liberals being affected. Bush may be an ineffective communicator, but that doesn't mean all thought stops in the rest of the country. Well-educated liberals, who have wealth and homes and children, begin to freak out as they get to know their apparent allies. They have something to lose from allowing insane people to run the country.

Even now, in conservatism's darkest hour, we continue to see the transformation of responsible liberals. It happened with Clinton, with Gore's election tantrum, with 9/11, with the Swift Boat Veterans, with Dan Rather and now with Michael Nifong. The rolling reconfiguration of the country can't help but to proceed in a molecular way.

A few more victories like this, and someday the phrase "sensible liberal" may make sense again.