The "right's" right to lie
By Libby
I have to agree there's no grounds for the DNC to sue either Powerline or Glenn Reynolds. Being morally bereft is not a crime unless it ends in actual violence. But they both deserve to be taken out behind the woodshed and soundly whipped for recklessly and worse yet, approvingly, promoting a vicious rumor they have to know is false.
There's not one shred of evidence beyond the rantings of some knuckle-dragging shock jock who's looking for a ratings boost by spreading a malicious lie. They don't have audio. They don't have an eyewitness testimony. They have an ugly falsehood that makes the Democrats look bad and they run with it. And then they attempt to justify such irresponsible conduct as an exercise of the First Amendment.
I call BS on that. It's exactly this sort of abuse of the FA that has diminished its standing in the eyes of the public. All they're doing is pushing us down that slippery slope to censorship when they put up posts that in essence say, "Nyah, nyah - we can lie and get away with it." And they can legally and gleefully pass on someone else's lies. But Glenn is wrong, wrong, wrong when he declares the threshold of malice would be hard to reach against the jock. Unless that jerk can come up with some evidence to back up his smear, what possible reason can be proffered for disseminating it except to harm its target's reputations - public figures or not?
I hope the DNC sues the pants off the bastard and his station. I'm all for unfettered speech when it comes to opinions but it's about time we set some parameters on what lies the media is allowed to foist off as facts on an unsuspecting public.
[thanks to Liberty Street for the link]
I have to agree there's no grounds for the DNC to sue either Powerline or Glenn Reynolds. Being morally bereft is not a crime unless it ends in actual violence. But they both deserve to be taken out behind the woodshed and soundly whipped for recklessly and worse yet, approvingly, promoting a vicious rumor they have to know is false.
There's not one shred of evidence beyond the rantings of some knuckle-dragging shock jock who's looking for a ratings boost by spreading a malicious lie. They don't have audio. They don't have an eyewitness testimony. They have an ugly falsehood that makes the Democrats look bad and they run with it. And then they attempt to justify such irresponsible conduct as an exercise of the First Amendment.
I call BS on that. It's exactly this sort of abuse of the FA that has diminished its standing in the eyes of the public. All they're doing is pushing us down that slippery slope to censorship when they put up posts that in essence say, "Nyah, nyah - we can lie and get away with it." And they can legally and gleefully pass on someone else's lies. But Glenn is wrong, wrong, wrong when he declares the threshold of malice would be hard to reach against the jock. Unless that jerk can come up with some evidence to back up his smear, what possible reason can be proffered for disseminating it except to harm its target's reputations - public figures or not?
I hope the DNC sues the pants off the bastard and his station. I'm all for unfettered speech when it comes to opinions but it's about time we set some parameters on what lies the media is allowed to foist off as facts on an unsuspecting public.
[thanks to Liberty Street for the link]
Labels: bloggers, First Amendment, lies, Media, Wingnuts
posted by Libby Spencer at 12:03 PM
16 Comments:
So what's it mean if Howlin' Howie doesn't sue?
Well, what it means is that the Powerline people, Jim Rob at FR, and the radio goons have called Howie's bluff, that the story was true, and that Dean's a bully and a bullshit artist.
The Cease and Desist Order was a stupid move that only Howard Dean could have done.
Which is basically what is going on here. Had the incident never took place, Dean wouldn't have bothered to send a C&D to the station and to Freerepublic.com. But he did. That's a dead giveaway that Dean was on the phone with Sibelius coaching her about what to say, and was using the C&D's to try to shut the story up.
Howard Dean is lying through his teeth, and is a oafish bully aside. Powerline, which is run by a couple of Minnesota trial lawyers, just called him on it.
You'll never hear a peep out of Dean about this again. He's totally pwned by the Powerline dudes.
"I have to agree there's no grounds for the DNC to sue either Powerline or Glenn Reynolds. Being morally bereft is not a crime unless it ends in actual violence...I hope the DNC sues the pants off the bastard and his station."
How can you write this and expect to be taken seriously?
Richard it can mean any number of things but whether or not they pursue action doesn't necessarily reflect on the merits of the case if that's what you're driving at. In fact I'd be surprised if they do, even though I think they have a good case.
anon and B Moe - forgive me if I'm somewhat skeptical about any press releases that come directly from the Pentagon. It's like they've never lied to us. Just ask the Tillman family.
I would ask you why would the governor lie if she knew it could be so easily disproved? And have you done anything to track her previous requests to the feds bring their equipment readiness back up to speed? What saved them in Kansas is civilian response, not Guard presence. That's works in a town of 1500, in a cit y of 5 million it would be a different story.
Sec9 - I'd ask again, where is the empirical evidence that Dean lied? You have to right to think it but suggesting that the C&D proves it seems a little silly to me. If they were guilty, they wouldn't have drawn extra attention to it with the C&D. I think the Dems are finally willing to fight back against false smears. But if they don't pursue it, it won't be because Powerline and Insty says they can't. But that's my opinion.
Nathan - I have no expectation that you or any of the PW regs would ever take me seriously, no matter what I write about. You're free to think I'm a fool. Not to worry, it won't ruin my life.
A Democrat said it, Libby believes it, that settles it.
Sounds vaguely familiar.
B Moe
That hardly seems a fair assessment B Moe when I put up two posts dissing the Dems this weekend and really blasted them in a rewrite of the same points at the DetNews.
Painting me a mindless partisan doesn't say much for your powers of observation.
Besides, the issue isn't whether it was even true that Kansas has enough equipment. The issue at hand is whether it's okay for a media personality to make up a lie out of thin air and promote in on the public airwaves with no accountability for his actions.
The issue is who is lying, you seem unable to believe that Sibelius or Dean would lie to for political purposes, even though the evidence would seem to indicate it as the most likely scenario.
B Moe
Anon - I ask again - What evidence? I haven't seen a shred either way. My point in all this is the jock put his personal conjecture forward as fact and then it was passed on without any caveats by big bloggers who are smart enough to know the difference.
Try this litmus test. If this story was about Martinez or Rove allegedly calling a Republican governor and instructing them to delberately lie, would you have the same certainty that it was true? There's a lot more circumstantial evidence in for instance the Plame case, that Rove and Cheney in fact did do exactly that but you hold the evidence in that matter to a different, much more sringent standard of proof.
Just saying...
No, Libby, B Moe would not understand and instead say the AP was lying about the story!
He cites some press release that says 60% of Kansas's National Guard forces are available, which is fantastic if Kansas instead to send a combat battalion in to Greensburg/Greenville/whatever to re-take it. Int he context of what the governor said, however, it is ludicrous. The governor did not say every piece of equipment was in Iraq; she said the equipment they needed would have been available, but was overseas.
Having a front-loader located 300 miles from where it is needed, when normally one is 50 miles away, slows down time-sensitive rescue operations. But, if one looks at this like most PW regulars where "rescuing Iraq" has taken 5 years with 50 or more still to go ("We're still in Germany!!"), and you can't hold on 5 years for rescue while under a pile of debris, well, that's your fault for wanting to surrender.
In essence, it's a wonderful example at broken politics in this country.
Powerline correctly states the law, but misses on the facts here, IMHO. The fake story proceeded with reckless disregard of the truth of the matter, which is adequate to satisfy the public figure libel test, IIRC.
Your thesis would have been more credible, Libby, had the DNC lawyers actually gone after the actual source of the allegations, Quinn & Rose. And how Powerline or Instapundit could be held liable is really a mystery. Instead, Howard Dean's lawyers are threatening the head of freerepublic, a public forum in which one of the members passed the story along. Also, the freeper wrote in his post that the revelations are "startling and if true..." Because of this, it looks to me like a shakedown by members of your party, targeting a group that runs on shoestring and ignoring the corporate-backed source who started the damn mess in the first place.
The response to wild accusations on a public forum isn't to sic your army of lawyers on 'em, but to answer the allegations and challenge their credibility. This only adds to your party's reputation that you would rather shut down speech you don't like rather than answer it.
Personally, I think Quinn should be challenged on this allegation. Either back it up or retract. If he does neither, then it confirms that he is an uncredible political hack and the GOP should have nothing to do with them.
Good point Charles. I initially reacted out of irritation to the tone of PL and Insty's response which I thought was fueling the rumor when as responsible "new media" citizen journalists they should have been questioning the credibility of it. A casual reader who doesn't obsessively follow the news cycle as we all do could have easily read that as an endorsement of its veracity. I thought they should be denouncing it as an obvious lie or at least pointing out the lack of evidence and the irresponsibility of the jock. Instead they used it only to score political points against Dean and the Dems, whom I don't even care about by the way, and if you follow all of Insty's links, it was also a slap at liberals in general.
On the point of the C&D, I thought my post made clear that I thought the DNC should be going after the jock and not the promoters of the fake story. I'd agree it does nothing but add to fuel to the meme that Dems/lefties/liberals want to shut down speech they don't agree with. A meme that I actually think is also false and unfairly promoted among the extreme righties btw.
Tim and JP, good points also. I agree that the standard of malice could be met if the DNC proceeded against the jock.
I'm not normally a litigious person and I'm a huge FA supporter. I nearly always believe that the best antidote to bad speech is more, better speech but lately I feel the outright false spin is out of control and maybe we need a test case in order to set a new legal standard for veracity in light of the technological advancements that make false allegations all too easy to spread and all too difficult to correct.
I'm sorry, I'm working today so I'm posting these replies on the fly and don't have time to arrange my thoughts more cogently. I think this case is a symptom of deeper problem that's been troubling me for a while now but I just don't have time to put forth my case properly.
Perhaps I'll do related post later in the week when I'm off again.
In any event thanks to all for your thoughts. I'm afraid I won't have time to reply again until much later this evening, assuming I'm able to stay awake. I'm anticipating a very long day.
I ask again - What evidence? I haven't seen a shred either way. My point in all this is the jock put his personal conjecture forward as fact and then it was passed on without any caveats by big bloggers who are smart enough to know the difference.
The jock, as I recall, stated that according to a high-level anonymous source it was true, so it could be possible the source was lying, or it could also be possible HD and the Gov are lying, or you could be correct and the Quinn and Rose could have made the whole thing up. I simply tend to believe either the source or HD are lying, but you are correct there is not alot of evidence either way. I do think the Governor was engaging in cheap political theatre with her initial claim, there has been no evidence I have seen the NG was hampered in their efforts.
Try this litmus test. If this story was about Martinez or Rove allegedly calling a Republican governor and instructing them to delberately lie, would you have the same certainty that it was true?
Would depend on the situation, I certainly wouldn't put it past them. I don't trust politicoes of any persuasion.
In any event thanks to all for your thoughts.
Thank you, this is quite a cordial board you have here, and I am sorry for being a bit snarky initially. I don't agree with your assesment of the situation, but it is very nice to be able to civilly discus our disagreements.
B Moe
Libby, did you see the post Scott put up late last night? Brownback e-mailed him to say there was no truth whatsoever in the story that he and Sibelius met. He said he does not know where the story came from; that it was "fabricated out of thin air."
Scott basically says, Who cares if it's true or not? The DNC attorney is still a thug.
I put an update about this on Liberty Street (on the post where I linked to yours).
B Moe, I may be impolitic but I do try to foster civil discourse here. Thanks again for stopping by to offer your perspective.
Kathy! Good to see you here. I've been meaning to put you on the blogroll but spaced it out this weekend. I didn't see Scott's post but I will go check it out.
Thanks in advance!
Post a Comment
<< Home