The New York Post’s Phil Mushnick, again looking for the reverse racism angle, considers the case of the Duke lacrosse players accused of rape, and comes to the conclusion that issues of race and class are being overstated.

While we don’t know what went on at that team party, the night of March 13, we do know, based on universal truths (and common sense) that before race, privilege and class even entered the equation – before that party even began – nothing good could happen.

Take one large part booze, one large part sex. Blend. Repeat. It’s a recipe for serious trouble everywhere, and no one group holds an exclusive on it. It’s trouble: No guesswork involved, none needed.

The party was predicated on charging the night with alcohol and sex, thus with incivility. Two strippers who, by design and definition, were hired to remove their clothing as a means of entertaining an audience of males that, by design and definition, would be inebriated.

Nothing better than bad could happen. It’s not a mere coincidence that strippers normally don’t perform at libraries, museums and churches, nor is it a coincidence that groups of drunken males are more inclined toward criminal behavior than groups of sober men.

But as the media began to latch on to this story, among the first things they did was ignore the indisputably obvious in favor of “deeper social meanings” – those “underlying reasons,” including white oppression.

When I was in college, three drunken frat brothers took turns taking sexual advantage of a drunken young woman. She was a resident of the largely poor college town, as was the alleged victim of the sexual assault at Duke.

But she was about 19, not 27. And she lived in a nice, big house. And she was white, as were the three frat brothers. But two of those frat brothers who lined up to have sex with her were dirt-poor sons of dirt-poor coal miners.

Booze and sex were the only issues at issue.

We don’t doubt that Durham has racial, social and economic class problems. But to present the March 13 episode as representative of all of them seems like sophistry, the work of political magicians, hustlers.

And that brings up one last question: If we were to throw a men-only party with lots of booze and female strippers, what would be the perfect racial, economic and social make-up of both the party-goers and the strippers in order to ensure that a good time will be had by all?

Turgid stuff from Phil, who is either terribly naive or the dopiest beard on planet earth if he doesn’t realize that even if race and class had no bearing on the commission of the crime, they are surely factors in how such alleged offenses are investigated and prosecuted. If a white student  had accused black students, regardless of university, of rape, would it have taken 5 weeks for an arrest?  Assuming the same black students’ parents weren’t zillionaires and they had to opt for public defenders instead of the best lawyers money could buy, might that have any influence over how a subsequent trial would proceed?