It is hard to look back on 2006 without concluding that Durham DA Mike Nifong is one the least honorable characters of the year, so it's doubly ironic that we start 2007 with news of his swearing in for a new term:

Reporters weren't allowed to see the 8 a.m. ceremony for District Attorney Mike Nifong and were barred from the building until it opened at 8:30 a.m. Durham County Sheriff Worth Hill confirmed the ceremony had taken place.

After the building opened to the public, Nifong said he scheduled the ceremony early so his assistants could attend and it wouldn't interfere with the work day.

"The whole point of this was this was not a media event," Nifong said. "This was an event that was required of us so we could get back to work and do our jobs. The message we tried to send was this: This is 2007. We're here to do our jobs. We're not here to basically help you guys sell newspapers or press coverage."

If only Nifong had worried about doing his job from the beginning. Instead he went out and did 70+ media interviews in the immediate aftermath of the rape accusation, ignored protocol in the identification process, and then sat on exculpatory DNA evidence to give the case legs.

Thomas Sowell argues that this case has always been about one thing and one thing only: Nifong's re-election. Sowell concludes:

Now that so many of his misdeeds have been so widely publicized, Nifong's agenda has to include keeping his job and avoiding disbarment or even being prosecuted himself.

And Susan Estrich makes an interesting argument, blaming Nifong for helping to create a fourth victim in the case: the accuser. Estrich writes:

I'm no fan of punishing lawyers for what they say to the media, even when it's the prosecutor overstepping. What troubles me about Nifong's comments is less that he said them to the media than that he believed them himself.

He had no reason ever to be certain of her story, given what we now know. There were obvious questions about her condition that night; obvious issues about her credibility; and an utter failure to corroborate the key element of her story with DNA tests. And that doesn't even begin to address the problems with her identification of the defendants, who didn't match her initial descriptions and were selected from an array composed only of team members, protecting her against making the mistake of choosing someone who wasn't there.

Not to mention the alibis of the boys she did select. This was a train wreck waiting to happen from the get-go.

Who did he think he was helping by ignoring the obvious?

Just exactly who did Mike Nifong think he was doing a favor by pushing forward a case with an alleged victim who, the minute she spoke, would inevitably be massacred as a lying slut?

Her? Her family? Her community? So that later there would be pressure to charge her for lying? Did he really think he was doing her any favors?

It's the prosecutor's job to avoid this kind of mess, not make it. Maybe all Mike Nifong ever cared about was getting elected, no matter how many victims he created. For all his claims to be standing up for the woman in this case, he in fact was doing just the opposite.

If he felt sorry for her, he should have gotten help for her, not given her the one-way ticket to hell which this prosecution is certain to be. With friends like Mike Nifong, who needs enemies?

I don't fully buy Estrich's argument - the accuser is responsible for whatever consequences flow from any lies she told and she could have recanted at any point - but there certainly is some merit to the claim that Nifong's behavior in this case (whether driven by naked ambition, poor judgment, or a combination of the two) has made things infinitely worse than they otherwise would have been. He is the central figure in this almost year-long tragedy and it's hard to see how he doesn't deserve all the skepticism and scorn that's continues to be heaped upon him.