Sympathy for the Devil
A question I posed to True/Slant blogger Richard Ungar who thinks President Obama should sue Rush Limbaugh for defamation regarding comments he uttered during a Fox news interview:
I do think Rush should be sued (or better yet physically pilloried) but can’t his lawyers make the case that he was conjecturing when he said those defamatory things? Sure, such offhand and out loud guessing might turn out to be recklessly misrepresenting of the president, but it seems like this defense provides enough wiggle room to escape the intending-to-cause-malice allegation. Answering for his unthinking statement, can’t Rush escape censure by basically claiming that – regardless of what documents and friends of the president say – he truly believed when he said those things that the president is ‘probably’ (big word here) guilty of committing plagiarism? Such a fact, if true, might greatly lower the standards and expectations of political punditry, but it clears Rush of making knowingly false statements which only indirectly appeared to intend malice.
Just my thoughts (I’m not a lawyer or law student by the way).
EDIT: Ungar’s reply-
Tim – nope. Conjecture would be if he said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if…” or “I don’t know if its true or not but I heard that…”.
Limbaugh’s statement was stated as a fact. Unless it’s true or was not made with utter disregard for the truth, it is slander.
I’m am a lawyer and I would take this case in a heartbeat.
Conclusion: I guess rhetoric is no match (or substitute) for how the law works.
VITALS
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