Then you would think that it would be easy to find great numbers of cases to highlight where the evidence is incontrovertible — but instead, one after another turns out to be dubious or even completely bogus. That leads Radley Balko to ask in this Washington Post column, Why do high-profile campus rape stories keep falling apart?

The most recent instance is the destruction of the credibility of the movie “The Hunting Ground” by Emily Yoffe. Before that was the very dubious Columbia case involving “mattress girl” Emma Sulkowicz, the infamous “Jackie” story in Rolling Stone, and the Duke lacrosse case. Activists need “stories” to get people motivated for the cause, but the “rape culture” advocates are remarkably bad at vetting theirs.

Balko suggests a number of answers to his question and I think this one nails it the best: “This desire to seek out the perfect poster case may also make activists and their sympathizers in the press more credulous and less willing to ask questions when a story that appears to fit the bill does come along….”

The whole “war on women” trope is so valuable to the left that zealots will utilize any case to help keep this hobgoblin going. If one case falls apart, well, forget about it and find new ones!