The Weeping Rapist

Have you met the latest? The craze? The thing the reporters were all over last week?

Bald Britney? Uh, that was the first of last week. We're speaking of the Weeping Rapist.

Now he doesn't weep while he rapes, please understand. No tears are shed then.

And no tears are shed for his victim.

But the Weeping Rapist was all the headlines last week in what read like some sort of effort to sell rapists as the "New Hot Bad Boy! He rapes! But he's sensitive, gals!"

He mainly cries for himself when he has to confess his own crimes but that's apparently considered bad form to point out.

We're speaking of Paul Cortez who confessed to his role in the gang rape of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi.

"She kept squirming and trying to keep her legs closed and saying stuff in Arabic. During the time me and Barker were raping Abeer, I heard five or six gunshots that came from the bedroom. After Barker was done, Green came out of the bedroom and said that he had killed them all, that all of them were dead. Green then placed himself between Abeer's legs to rape her [. . .]"

That's Cortez in his confession. Somehow, when The New York Times ran a Reuters story in which the quote appeared, they manged to edit out Abeer's name but they've been rendering her invisible for some time.

Cortez was also quoted as saying Abeer "kept screaming and tried to keep her legs closed. At no point did I think that I had consent to have sex with Abeer." Of course he didn't have consent and, let's note the obvious, Abeer was fourteen-years-old when Cortez became one of her gang rapists.

The press was all over the Weeping Rapist. Here's what he said while sobbing, as reported by AFP, "I'm sorry I let you guys down; you guys treat me better than this."

Oh, did he let down his wingmen? How sad. How very sad.

What about the victims -- who are all dead -- did he have anything to say there?

No.

In fact, CBS noted that he couldn't even explain why he did it. So that's James Barker (in November) and Paul Cortez that have now confessed to their role in the gang rape. (And praise to AP for calling it what it was -- "gang rape.") They both finger Steven D. Green as the one who murdered Abeer's parents and her five-year-old sister. Their court-room confessions both maintain that Green raped Abeer as well and that he was the one who killed her.

Green maintains he is innocent.

There are others involved and we'll learn how their court room appearances go shortly. We find it amazing that the "under pressure" excuse is being mounted by one with an upcoming trial date. "Under pressure"? "I was under pressure so I talked with my buddies about how much fun it would be to kill Iraqis and how hot I thought that 14-year-old girl was. I was under pressure so I took part in devising a murder and gang rape plan. I was under pressure so we were sure to have a lookout. I was under pressure so when I was done with my part in the war crimes, I joined my buddies to grill some chicken and down some beers."

It's a hard life, it's a hard life, it's a very hard life . . . as Nanci Griffith sings.

So Cortez got setenced to 100 years but he's up for parole in ten. Abeer's dead. Her sister's dead. Her parents are dead. Cortez cried for his buddies. And the press wanted you to know all about the Weeping Rapist.