The big media made such a stink about the exiting of NBC’s Today Show host Katie Couric to fill the CBS evening news timeslot. Couric, who your author really never watched, apparently created a vacuum upon her move. Her Today Show co-host Matt Lauer was then given Meredith Vieira as a new television partner. There was much anticipation for Couric’s debut. CBS had been reeling since the major faux paux with Dan Rather and the forged military documents pertaining to President Bush’s military service.
ABC needed to one upped the ratings game, which by all indications shows the demand for the news coverage by the three big networks to be declining, so something that was over the top must have been running through the minds of network executives. On Wednesday evening Matt Lauer and the entire US media outlet for that matter sunk to an all new low.
With a tone of seriousness Matt Lauer interviewed the buxom blonde pedophile and emotionally unstable Debra LaFave. She was the Florida schoolteacher that was charged with having sex with a 14 year old student. She was 23. She narrowly escaped being handed a lengthy prison sentence when the victim’s parents refused to allow their son to testify. Ms. LaFave does have to wear an ankle monitor, will never teach again, remains under house arrest and must see a probation officer for the next several years. She will also be a permanent fixture on Florida’s sexual offenders’ database.
After getting over the initial shock, 20-25 years ago network television would have never dreamt of having the likes of Ms. LaFave grace across their screen, your author tuned in for bits and pieces of the interview. Your author did not watch the entire interview but has since obtained the script between Ms. LaFave and Lauer.
Lauer sets up by pressing LaFave on why she thinks there is so much attention still devoted to her despite numerous other cases pending across the states. He suggests maybe it is because she is pretty. She replies I guess so, sex sells.
Lauer then feels the need to draw in LaFave and to have her describe events that led up to her underage tryst with the middle school aged student. La Fave fully admits the several encounters were wrong and then it begins- the whys and what could have lead to this illegal relationship. The program narrates how LaFave’s mother described her daughter’s childhood filled with phobias, panic attacks and obsessions. This is the first step in Debra La Fave’s life that would lead her to have sex with a kid and eventually end up in front of Matt Lauer.
LaFave then recounts how when she was 13 years old a fellow male student attempted to rape her in a school closet. This is a crucial element worthy mentioning for Lauer’s audience. It behooves your author to state that in a court of law, where honesty and integrity are still upheld, this claim would have been thrown out. It would be labeled hearsay. La Fave describes her potential rapist as someone being close, describing him as a ‘boyfriend’. Another tragic point in Ms. LaFave’s life was the loss of her sister Angie due to a drunk driver.
Although they don’t give his age, this alleged attempted rapist abused her and this would forever change her view of sex. She felt that she must please the man. Lauer coaxes her along by adding, “But you felt it was your duty. You didn’t really feel as if you had a choice”, which she replies “Exactly”. She then recounts that by age 15 she was heavily drinking that capitulated two suicide attempts. Despite these mixed messages about sex she had no problem posing in a bikini-convertible type magazine by the time she turned 18.
Despite bouts of depression and drinking while modeling bathing suits on the hoods of cars, LaFave managed to enroll in college, maintain a B average and graduate with a Bachelors’ of Arts in English. She then was able to pass the teaching certification requirements and found herself teaching middle school aged children. Additionally she settled down to marriage. Shortly thereafter she encountered a 14 year old student who Ms. LaFave described as once sexually assaulting her. However even his previous gropes did nothing to dissuade her illegal acts. She didn’t bother informing the child’s parents or even school authorities. No she waited one week to have sex with him. In fact the account of this sexual assault contradicts with the statement given by the student.
LaFave describes the student being close to 6’. She is 5’7. When pressed by Lauer to explain this leap from allegedly being attack to embracing your attacker within a week, Debra LaFave throws out another blame game for the audience. She replies to Lauer, “You know, I love my father. But for the majority of my childhood into my teenage years, he was emotionally absent. And the only interaction that—that we really had together was when he scolded me, or if I did something wrong, he would get mad at me. And so at a very early age, I learned to associate—negativity or—lack of emotion with—love”. So now Ms. La Fave was confused because of her father. Of course we have no response from the father. Your author has to wonder, pure speculation, if he has since distanced himself from her in the wake of her bad choices and infamous reputation.
LaFave and the student would have several sexual encounters. One encounter she described him ‘wanting it’. All the while she continued teaching, still married to her husband and knowing full well it was illegal. Lauer feels the need to lead the interview in reaffirming the types of sexual acts exchanged by the two.
As stated previously she was not charged with the statutory rape charges when the boy’s parents refused to allow him to testify. However during her arrest she was shackled and placed in gynecological stirrups. She claims the nurse asked her if she had been raped. Ms. LaFave then says she was indeed rape at 13 and that she was being raped again by authorities.
Prior to the initial preliminaries of her trial her attorney arranged for psychiatrist Dr. Eric Hollander, chair of Mount Sinai Medical School in New York City, to examine Ms. LaFave. He determined she was hypersexual as a result of a bipolar disorder.
When asked about the difference between what she claims to have encountered at 13 and what actually occurred with the then 14 year old boy, Ms. LaFave offers this bit of wisdom:
LaFave: I think first my rape was a violent rape.
Lauer: So because yours was not a violent rape of this student, you think that’s a big difference?
LaFave: Well, it’s a difference. I don’t know if it’s a big difference. You know, a 14-year-old ten years ago is different than a 14-year-old today.
Lauer: Not in the eyes of the law.
LaFave: Right. Not in the eyes of the law. He consented, but I should have been the one to say, “Look. You are a kid. And this is not a good idea, whether you want it or not.”
To add further lunacy she adds the following when asked what she thinks her punishment should be, “I think I should be in jail”. This is a slap in the face to all good teachers in the Florida public education system and anyone who subscribes to the law. It’s a slap because Ms. LaFave is correct, she should be in jail but it is awfully easy for her to say that now. Finally the following is her closing statement it is in essence given her mental and emotionally instability, a lie, “It’s hard. It is so hard because I lived 23 years of my life, knowing who I was. I was a kindhearted person who loved children, who would never, you know, do anything to break the law. I was a good person. And then now everything has just changed. So it’s just really hard for me to accept that”.
No Ms. LaFave you are not a good person. The fact that you even agreed to come on television should tell the viewer you wanted to ‘tell your side of the story’, as if a further explanation was needed. This is argumentative in the face of a debate where there is no argument between right and wrong. This in itself screams of her lack of self-accountability. Oh she may be stricken with guilt or remorse because she lost her husband who filed for divorce and the permanent loss of her teaching credentials. If she was truly repentant she would have not been sitting in front of Matt Lauer.
Despite her claims that she would never do anything to break the law you most certainly did, a felony on of top it. How can you tell America you belong in jail but find it difficult to accept your current situation, which is a walk in the park compared to being in prison? I would hope that in the US justice system your case failed not because of your pretty face or whether he ‘wanted it’, but because it lacked enough substance to ensure you would be spend plenty of time behind bars thinking about you had done and how you had defamed the educational system. In other words your case would have been based solely on the word of your former student and a lack of other tangible evidence.
There is countless number of women who have endeared far worse than what Ms. LaFave describes. Harriet Tubman braved unknown dangers, quite possibly the sacrifice of her life, when she led slaves to freedom with her Freedom Train. Many women were forced in indescribable atrocities when they endured the tortures of Nazi concentration camps. Iraqi women chanced life for the pursuit of liberty when they came out in droves to vote in October 2005.
Debra LaFave should have never been a teacher and not just because of the obvious reason. She shouldn’t hold any occupation for that matter, not one that is based upon responsibility for one’s own actions, trust and accountability. She by her own admittance is filled with excuses and instability. Ms. LaFave is the result of blurry messages of morals, the aftermath of moral relativism and their practitioners. This is where the guidelines for right and wrong are confused for sake of appearing ‘non-judgmental’. It appears that current network media is following suit with their desperate attempts to remain competitive.
