Bear with me here, but this article at Gawker is a spectacular kind of sad comedy gold.

In one paragraph Gawker chastises those who questioned Lena Dunham’s ‘rape’ claim in her ‘autobiography’ by calling them ‘distasteful’ and asserts, “They were wrong”.  Oh and by the way, Gawker uses the characterization of said ‘rape’ as a “night of unwanted unprotected sex”. Someone ask Whoopi if that qualifies as “rape-rape”.

The author, J.K. Trotter, then turns around and tells the audience it was actual the son of an NPR host, who is a Democrat, who ‘raped’ her. Trotter then tears a hole in his own piece. He says in one of the summary paragraphs at the end that even that description might be wrong and that Ungar looks to have gone into hiding.

Got that?

Those who pretty much nailed Dunham as a liar were wrong, but Gawker is right because… just because.

This author is right because… well, because Trotter dug up a name to go with the proposal description. Gawker had her original proposal for the book, which described ‘Barry the Republican rapist’ as really a Democrat, who is the son of an NPR host:

“Dunham didn’t invent a rapist character out of thin air, as the conservative writers have implied. The 2012 proposal for Not That Kind of Girl recounted the same night of unwanted unprotected sex—and supplied enough specific biographical detail to identify the man being described.

His name is Philip Samuel Ungar, a 2006 graduate of Oberlin. Now 30, he’s the son of former All Things Considered host and retired Goucher College president Sanford J. Ungar. Dunham has never explicitly named him, but his biography closely aligns with her characterization of her alleged rapist—“His father was actually the former host of NPR’s All Things Considered”—in an early draft of the chapter where she describes being assaulted.”

Gawker mentioned that Dunham claims the final version was meant to conceal her alleged attacker:

In a recent essay for BuzzFeed, Dunham argued that these details were intended to conceal, not reveal, her alleged rapist’s identity: “Reporters have attempted to uncover the identity of my attacker despite my sincerest attempts to protect this information.”

“Sincerest attempts to protect”?

Did she say that with a straight face? She basically made up a white, male, Republican ‘rapist’ and gave him the name Barry and didn’t identify this description as altered or the name as a pseudonym. Better to smear a Republican guy than the actual Democrat guy involved, right? You know, because Republicans are eeeevil anyway. Dunham’s description seems  pretty clearly a  ‘sincere attempt’ to mislead, not conceal.

Is there any reason we should be believing the book proposal account versus the soundly debunked final draft?

Yes and No.
No.
According to Gawker, even the book proposal identification might be wrong:

It’s possible, also, that Ungar is not the person who raped Dunham—that, for reasons unknown, she used certain details of Ungar’s life in her description of her sexual assault, and decided to remove them upon publication of the memoir.

Yes.
A second man’s life is about to be turned upside down by Ms. Dunham.

Kevin Williamson is right. Arguably, she’s already libeled “Barry”, who has had to go into hiding and lawyer up.  Now, Mr. Ungar may also have a suit.

No telling if Dunham ever been sued before. Maybe this will be her ‘first time‘.