But there's been one missing, crucial piece of the media jigsaw puzzle: Manti Te'o. Until tonight, Te'o has kept quiet (which has only served to add fuel to the fire of widespread criticism of his outrageous story.) The media has, in general, has avoided critique of the Te'o defense, which is more ridiculous when juxtaposed against his previous descriptions of the girl he described as the "love of his life." Late Friday night, an audio only [red flag] interview was conducted and released by ESPN, and if things were bad for the lyin' Hawaiian before, they're about to get even dicier.
The Te'o defense now includes the admission that his accounts of meeting the purported "hoaxer" were forged. Manti explains that this was a cover-up to prevent his peers, teammates, and family from getting the impression that he is "weird". As it turns out, nothing convinces people you're a normal guy quite like a national media inquisition of your sanity.
One would assume that an honest Manti would have no reason to decline a video interview, as his reaction should be genuine if he's telling the truth. The last thing his PR team wants is doubt and when you don't show your face in 'the big reveal', you brew up a mess of speculation. Jeremy Schaap, the ESPN reporter conducting the interview, admitted that Te'o seemed genuine and "unflinching" in his responses, but eventually conceded that audio alone was probably a "bad choice".
It's going to be amazing to watch Te'o squirm through this process as more facts are uncovered, followed by the subsequent, douce-chilly "come-clean" press conference. But the fact remains...Manti Te'o is, at best, so dumb that there's no reason for him to be in higher education in the first place;at worst a compulsive (and excellently terrible) liar. I'm putting my chips on the latter.
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