The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Discovery Is a Bitch,’ as They Say, and Doug Mataconis Is …

Posted on | September 27, 2011 | 42 Comments

. . . well, he’s badly mistaken, in my opinion, because if I called him an “obnoxious a–hole,” he might sic his lawyers on me. Truth is the ultimate defense in such cases, of course, but his apparent prejudice against Sarah Palin seems to be clouding his judgment.

Now, let’s count the weasel words: “in my opinion” Mataconis is sadly mistaken, and calling him an “obnoxious a–hole” is merely suggested as a hypothetical. I say he “might sic his lawyers on me,” but the “might” relieves me of having to prove that Mataconis is a litigious pest who files nuisance suits at the drop of a hat. (An assertion I have not made.) His “prejudice,” I describe as merely “apparent” — he certainly gives the appearance of being prejudiced against Palin — and it only “seems” that his judgment is clouded by this.

You see? Long years of practice at avoiding libel come in handy at a time like this, so that if Mataconis accuses me of calling him an “obnoxious a–hole,” it would be him who has defamed me.

OK, so I spent about two hours working on a long item at The American Spectator about Sarah Palin’s potential defamation case against Random House. And then Mataconis pops up on Twitter derogating my work, as if he were indeed an obnoxious a–hole.

It is not my habit to engage in arguments 140 characters at a time, when I might as well get a blog post of it. My American Spectator item was written in response to a column today by David Magee:

But here’s the problem with suing [Joe] McGinnis and the publisher: Palin would have to prove that the allegations in the book are all lies if she proceeded with a lawsuit.
She’s a public figure — considerably so — and it’s hard to prove libel when you are in the public eye in the first place. . . .
She would have to clear her name completely.

And here’s what I wrote at The American Spectator:

This is absurd. If the Palins do sue, their suit will specify defamatory statements in McGinniss’s book that they believe they can prove false. They do not have to prove every allegation false, nor would Sarah “have to clear her name completely.” Only evidence and testimony relevant to those disputed allegations will be admissible, and so there is no basis for Magee’s assertion that Palin would have to address every lurid claim in the McGinniss book.

What Magee (and Mataconis) are thinking about is the old legal axiom, “Discovery is a bitch.” Before you sue someone for defamation, you have to think about what evidence the defense might be able to demand you, as the plaintiff, produce in the discovery phase of the suit. But they can only demand evidence that might be relevant to the truth of a statement that you have claimed is false and defamatory.

So if Palin’s suit doesn’t dispute, for example, McGinniss’s cocaine-and-adultery tales, then Random House can’t go on a fishing expedition in that area. Assuming that her suit would be very specific about which statements she disputed — cherry-picking those most easily proven false — then the “discovery is a bitch” factor would be no deterrent to suing.

Certainly her lawyers would advise her very carefully in such a matter, and they might even advise her against suing. But if she does sue, she need not “clear her name completely” or prove herself a virtuous Saint Sarah in order to prevail. If she exposes McGinniss as having published multiple lies, she destroys his credibility even as to the truth of accusations that she does not specifically dispute. McGinniss’s e-mail to Jesse Griffin appears very damaging to Random House, and the letter Palin’s lawyer sent to Random House suggests a suspicion that there may be other e-mails equally damaging.

And as I have repeatedly said, McGinniss’s known association with Griffin is damaging. In my item at The American Spectator, I call Griffin a “lying pervert” — without fear of libel. It is an objective fact that Griffin lied about his “exclusive” that Palins were divorcing. (More than two years later, they’re still married.) So there’s your “lying” and as for the “pervert,” permit me to remind you:

“You know the reason that many people enjoy adult movies is that it is sexy to watch people making love. . . . I think that this trend toward real people having real sex is definitely the way to go. I always had a little guilt watching an adult movie and wondering if the female performer was a drug addict, or victim of molestation, just prostituting herself to make a buck. I am not Jewish, so guilt and sex don’t really go together for me. But when you see a video of an amateur couple having sex you can tell that they are simply doing it for the sheer excitement of sharing their passion with a bunch of middle aged pervs who are going to wank off to their sexual exploits. Well great here comes that guilt again.”
— “Gryphen,” a/k/a Jesse Griffin, June 3, 2007

“Yes I DO work in a Kindergarten class during the school year. My main job affords me some time during the day and I have chosen to use it teaching children to read, and helping them to become more independent.”
— “Gryphen,” a/k/a Jesse Griffin, Aug. 2, 2009

“Having somebody reveal your “secret identity” can be a little unsettling . . .”
— “Gryphen,” A/K/A, Jesse Griffin, Aug. 4, 2009

“All of the fun of sex is drained by making all of these rules and labels. If sex is not naughty then it is almost not worth doing. I love kids, but in my opinion they are just a side effect of a healthy sex life.”
— Gryphen,” a/k/a Jesse Griffin, June 14, 2007

“And your penis will respond more readily if you take it out and put it through its paces more often. Duh! So the next time your girlfriend/wife/mother bust you for watching porn on your computer, simply tell her that you are exercising and you would appreciate some privacy.”
— “Gryphen,” a/k/a Jesse Griffin, July 7, 2008

“That’s right I am promoting self pleasure. Does that really surprise anybody?”
— Gryphen,” a/k/a Jesse Griffin, Oct. 17, 2007

“I do it because it brings me joy to work with these children and I believe, and have been told, that I am very good at it . . .
“[Y]ou now know my dirty little secret. I am an assistant teacher in a room full of five year old children. . . .”
— Gryphen,” a/k/a Jesse Griffin, Aug. 2, 2009

“I am teaching my boys to wear dresses and swish when they walk because being ignorant or drug addicted is no longer a guarantee of being passed over. If your not willing to suck cock then pack up your going to Iraq.”
— “Gryphen,” a/k/a Jesse Griffin, June 10, 2005

It seems Griffin has attempted to scrub his archives, but Dan Riehl still has all the cache files of the “Gryphen” blog he downloaded back when Jesse was forced out of his kindergarten job. The fact that McGinniss turned to Griffin for help in vetting his “tawdry gossip” is just about all you need to know about what kind of journalism McGinniss was doing.

If I were a Random House executive, I’d be very worried right now.

And if I were an oxnoxious a–hole . . . well, let’s don’t talk about Doug Mataconis. He might sic his lawyers on us.

Category: Sarah Palin

Like Peaches & Herb

Posted on | September 27, 2011 | 40 Comments

Smitty and I were re-united today at Baltimore-Washington International Airport when our hero returned from Afghanistan to buy me a beer. Well, he returned for other reasons, but buying me a beer was at the top of the to-do list. Of course, there were others there to greet the Conquerer of the Afghan Seas.

Itty-Bitty Smitty, a/k/a The World’s Youngest Blogger, was glad to see the Admiral. Frankly, the two-month-old tyke seemed to be gloating over the fact that he now has more hair than his dad. These kids today — no respect for their elders!

The excitement of our re-union eventually overwhelmed Itty Bitty, who reclined in the arms of Frau Smitty — something I believe the Admiral is also eager to do. IYKWIMAITYD.

Wait a minute. Maybe that wasn’t the Peaches & Herb song I was looking for. Here, let’s try that again:

Category: Aghanistan, World's Youngest Blogger

Border Wars in … Boston?

Posted on | September 27, 2011 | 14 Comments

Peter Ingemi reports this scoop:

BOSTON – On Monday, September 26th at noon in Room 222 of the State House, a bipartisan and bicameral coalition of legislations will announce the filing of a comprehensive illegal immigration bill directed at enhancing the safety of the Commonwealth’s communities and the protection of taxpayer dollars.

And his reaction:

After reading that paragraph the first thing I did was confirm that:

  1. I was awake
  2. I was in Massachusetts.
Category: Immigration, Massachusetts

President Obama: He May Be Losing the Congressional Black Caucus …

Posted on | September 27, 2011 | 7 Comments

. . . and when even Maxine Waters seems disaffected, you gotta wonder who’s still on his side. But there is one constituency whose loyalty toward Obama is unshakeable: The Abortion Industry!

Category: Abortion, Barack Obama

RUN, STEVE, RUN!

Posted on | September 27, 2011 | 7 Comments

Longtime conservative New Media activist Steve Foley has formed an exploratory committee to run for Congress as a Republican in California’s newly redrawn 47th District. His policy focus is on three main areas:

Economy and Jobs: Getting our fiscal house in order by supporting a Balanced Budget Amendment, Cutting Spending, Replacing our antiquated Tax Code, Removing overburdening Restrictions & Red Tape, and becoming Energy Independent.

Repealing ObamaCare:ObamaCare will devastate our already weak economy to a point of no return and will burden future generations of Americans to pay for a bill that has little to no chance of success. The best solution would to get the federal government as far away from Health Care as possible but while we work to achieve that goal here are some immediate fixes we can accomplish in a relatively short amount of time:

  • Medical liability & tort reform.
  • Small business buying pools.
  • Allow insurance to be sold across state lines.

Border Security: The way to tackle the illegal immigration problem we’re facing is to make federal government do their job! I would advocate for:

  1. Securing our borders
  2. Enforcing the laws that are already on the books
  3. Promoting a path to citizenship for those who come in the front door
  4. Removing the magnets that draw illegal immigrants here in the first place

Steve is best-known in the blogosphere as founder of the Minority Report blog. The first time I met him was in October 2009 in Lake Placid, N.Y., where he helped lead Liberty Wire’s team supporting Doug Hoffman in the historic NY-23 special election. Steve was also front-and-center in Massachusetts during the Scott Brown campaign, he worked hard to help elect conservatives during the 2010 mid-terms, and for the past nine months he has led the online grassroots army at Citizens for Cain.

Re-districting has created an open seat in the 47th District, which includes Steve’s hometown of Cypress, Calif., and as he says in a post at his blog, “I’m putting my money where my mouth is.” This is a chance to really make a difference. Steve’s campaign could shake things up in California, where the state GOP is dominated by a tired and timid Establishment.

Steve Foley has been a key part of the conservative uprising for the past two years and I hope you’ll give him your generous support.

STEVE FOLEY for U.S. CONGRESS
California 47th District

Category: California, Congress, Election 2012, Steve Foley

LIVE AT FIVE – 09.27.11

Posted on | September 27, 2011 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Senate OKs Stopgap Funding Bill, Prevents Shutdown

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

FEMA finds $114 million in couch cushions, fight over disaster relief funding and shutdown averted

Hikers’ Iranian Lawyer Denies Abuse Allegations
Surprise, surprise, surprise


NASA Satellite Falls To Earth
Nobody’s really sure quite where it landed



POLITICS
Perry’s Immigration Stance Not Going Down Well In Iowa

Rick Perry makes a stop in Newton, Iowa

Border fence, tuition issues keep coming up in campaign stops

Park Service Says Washington Monument To Remain Closed Indefinitely



Bloomberg: NYPD Has Secret Arsenal

Obama Says Failure To Pass Jobs Bill Means “We’ll Get A New Congress”

Some Republicans Backing Obama On No Child Left Behind Waivers

Obamacare’s Path To Supreme Court Cleared



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Stocks Gain On Hopes For Euro Zone Plan
Dow Closes Above 11,000 On Hope For Europe
New Home Sales Fall To Six-Month Low In August
United Airlines Feeling Merger Pains
Spot Gold Edges Down
Samsung Unveils Galaxy 8.9 Tablets, Pair Of Media Players
Android Powers 56% Of Smartphones Sold In Last Three Months
Does Facebook’s New Ticker Tell Too Much?
Amazon’s Small Gamble
2000-Year-Old Dead Sea Scrolls Go Online



SPORTS
Ozzie Guillen Headed For Marlins

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen

Jack McKeon announced retirement from managing Monday; Guillen managed last game for White Sox Monday.

Red Sox Continue Choking, Lose 6-3 To O’s

Phillies Defeat Braves 4-2 For Win #100

Heisey Leads Reds Past Mets 6-5 With Bat And Glove

Eagles QB Vick Backs Off Criticism Of Refs; Reports Hand Bruised, Not Broken

Italian Team Offers Kobe Bryant $5 Million For One Year

Ttians’ Britt Out For Season With Knee Injury

3-0 Records Bring Hope To Bills And Lions

Selig Threatens To Kick Dodgers Out Of Baseball

Nationals Two Games Away From Finishing Over .500 With 6-4 Win Against Fish



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Ellen DeGeneres Treated For Chest Pains

Ellen DeGeneres

Apparently doing fine after treatment by fire department EMTs

“Millionaire Matchmaker” Says Gay Men Can’t Handle Monogamy


Southwest Boots “L-Word” Star Off Plane After Other Passengers Complain About Excessive PDA

“Playboy Club” Star Sean Maher Opens Up About His Sexuality

Spencer Pratt Is Broke And Can’t Get Work

Charlie Sheen, WB And Chuck Lorre Reach Settlement



FOREIGNERS
Saudi Trial Of ShamelessFemale Driver To Proceed
Typhoon Hits Philippines, Pretty Much Shuts Down Manila
Hacktivists Deface Official Syrian Websites
Two Monks In Tibet Set Selves On Fire
Bolivia’s President Suspends Amazon Highway After Clashes With Indians, Protesters
Monsoon Flooding Kills 48, Strands Thousands In India
PRC Butthurt Over Taiwan F-16 Upgrades, Scales Back Military Ties With US



BLOGS & STUFF
American Power: Women Activists Pepper Sprayed At “Occupy Wall Street” Protest
PJ Tatler: CNN Post-Debate Poll Still Has Perry On Top
Andrew Malcolm: New Gaffe – Obama Confuses Jews With Janitors
Weasel Zippers: Maxine Waters Says If Obama Had Just Read The Teleprompter He Wouldn’t Have “Got Carried Away”
Michelle Malkin: Latest Obama Stage Prop – Retired Mega-Dem Donor/Former Google Employee Asks Prez To Raise His Taxes
NewsBusters: WaPo Hails Kagan’s “Bold Rookie Term” – Bold As In Liberal
NRO Corner: Reid Laments “Job-Killing” Cuts He Once Supported
Clayton Cramer: How Much Worse Can Fast & Furious Get?
Confederate Yankee: Gunwalker Bombshell Supported By Congressional Documentation
Hit & Run: An Earnest Cry For A Third Political Option Which Sounds Pretty Much Like The Democratic Party
Don Surber: Bad Move, Facebook
Pejman Yousafzadeh: John Mearsheimer Further Beclowns Himself, Film At 11
Jawa Report: Pakistani Imams Declare Jihad Against US Obligatory If Pakistan Attacked
Allahpundit: Hey, Who’s Up For Another “Maybe Christie’s Running” Post?
Big Government: Solar Decathlon Sign Powered With Gas Generator


SOTD: Woke Up This Morning

Category: Live at Five

SHOCKER: Herman Cain Now Leading Rick Perry 28%-18% in New Zogby Poll UPDATE: Dennis Miller Endorses Cain, Invites Me* to Hang Out in Hollywood

Posted on | September 26, 2011 | 38 Comments

Sarah Rumpf at Sunshine State Sarah brings the stunning news:

Rick Perry has tumbled by more than 20 percentage points over the past month among Republican presidential primary voters and is now second to Herman Cain, who leads the field with 28%.
Mitt Romney received little benefit from Perrys fall, garnering 17% of the vote for third place. . . .
These results are from an IBOPE Zogby interactive poll conducted Sept. 23-26. . . .

You can read the rest from Zogby. Their “interactive” methodology has been the subject of criticism in the past, but I expect we’ll see other polls confirming a similar trend in coming days.

UPDATE: Skepticism toward Zogby’s methodology was to be expected, and especially from liberals like Oliver Willis of Media Matters, but as I say, the trend is what I’ll be watching.

Sarah points out that Zogby includes survey information from Monday. An earlier poll by CNN, showing Perry still ahead, was taken Friday through Sunday. But (a) it was Perry’s defeat in the straw poll that will do the most damage, and (b) weekend survey data is untrustworthy. Only when I see an all-weekday polls fully reflecting the impact of the Orlando vote will I be confident about the trend.

That there will be a shift, I have no doubt. The whole argument for Perry was that he was the inevitable conservative alternative to Romney. Now both his inevitability and his conservatism are in doubt, so he is not likely to remain atop the polls much longer.

UPDATE II: Linked by The Lonely Conservative, another early Cain endorser, who welcomes a latecomer aboard the Cain Train:

[Dennis] Miller, who mentioned his support for the Cain campaign on his national radio show, will headline a fundraiser for Cain in Los Angeles and has donated to the campaign, a Cain spokeswoman confirmed. …
Miller has been supportive of Cain for months — his website directed readers to the Georgia businessman’s campaign site in July –- but had not formally endorsed him until today.

Fundraiser in Los Angeles? Oh, I gotta be there for that!

UPDATE II: Once you’re through hitting the tip jar to send me to Hollywood to hang out celebrities like my new best friend Dennis Miller, you need to watch this video where an ABC News reporter mocks Herman Cain as a “nobody”:

Good Morning America’s John Hendren on Sunday dismissed the victory of Herman Cain in the Florida straw poll, condescendingly asserting that the “big winner is nobody.”

Hey, punk: I’m a “nobody,” too. There’s nearly 300 million nobodies in this country, and all we need is 50% plus one of the voters, and Obama will become an ex-somebody.

UPDATE III: I realize that saying that my new BFF Dennis Miller has “invite[d] me to hang out in Hollywood,” I’m kind of stretching things. But when you hold a public political event, the press is necessarily invited. Plus, I’m tight with Team Herman, so in all seriousness, I expect exclusive access at this event. All I’ve got to do is rattle the tip jar with such with hitherto unequalled frenzy in order to get to Hollywood, and I’ll be in like Flynn.

Bonus: I’ve still got a personal cell-phone number for Courtney Stodden’s mom. Think about that. It’s also possible I could impose on Team Palin to arrange an interview with Bristol. An interview with Alyssa Milano is less likely, but I wouldn’t rule it out entirely.

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain, Polls, Rick Perry

Not a ‘Threat’: Palin Lawyer Gives McGinniss, Random House Legal Notice

Posted on | September 26, 2011 | 149 Comments

This headline at ABC News is misleading:

Sarah Palin Threatens to
Sue ‘Rogue’ Book Publisher

It is misleading, because there is no “threat” in the letter. Rather, as Governor Palin’s lawyer John Tiemessen clearly states, the legal prerequisite for a defamation suit under Alaska law:

“[S]ince both your company, and the author, clearly knew the statements were false, admitted they had no basis in fact or reality, but decided to publish in order to harm Governor Palin’s family, you and Mr. McGinniss have defamed the Palins. This letter shall serve as written notice . . . that a claim may be brought against you, your company and Mr. McGinniss for knowingly publishing false statements.”

While I am not specifically familiar with Alaska’s libel law, I am familiar with libel law in general — as every journalist should be — and what Tiemessen has sent Random House is what’s known as a “demand letter.”

A publisher is put on notice by such a letter that the lawyer’s client considers himself the victim of libel. Notice of intent is required for several reasons. In the newspaper business, if somebody calls your office and bitches about a story, OK. But the minute they say “lawsuit” or “lawyer,” you end the conversation and refer them to the newspaper’s attorney.  If the complainer is actually serious about a libel suit, their lawyer sends a demand letter, and the newspaper’s attorney then considers whether the complainer has a case. If the lawyer says retract, you retract.

Printing a retraction is a humiliating thing for a newspaper to do, but it’s cheaper than taking a libel suit to court. Retracting a book is not so easy, which is why book publishers have lawyers on retainer whose job is to vet manuscripts like McGinniss’s.

For many years, it has been part of my business to know the difference between the mere threat of a libel suit — threats are a dime a dozen — and such letters as Tiemessen has sent Random House. This is not a “threat,” and the executives at Random House damn well know it. They clearly failed to perform “due diligence” in fact-checking, and no cleverness in attributing lies to anonymous sources can protect them.

What the hell were they thinking, hiring a writer of such notoriously bad judgment that he would hang out with Jesse Griffin?

UPDATE: Thanks to the fine legal minds in the comments, one of whom informs me that Tiemessen’s letter is actually a “litigation hold,” a notice to a prospective defendant that he should preserve documents relevant to “anticipated litigation.”

Which is very close to “See you in court, buddy” — as I say, it’s not a mere threat. In the comments below, I explain that my knowledge of libel law is strictly operational: As a journalist, how do I avoid a libel suit? And, if I find myself threatened with such a suit, how do I deal with it?

Most of the time, I laugh off any mere threat of a libel suit. American libel law generally favors the defendant. A journalist has to screw up pretty bad to lose a libel case, particularly one where the plaintiff is a public figure per the Sullivan precedent. But (a) McGinniss has screwed up royally with his e-mail to Griffin, and (b) Sarah’s brother Chuck Heath Jr. is clearly not a public figure, nor are several other members of Palin’s family who might claim defamation in this case. So even if Sarah can’t win a trial case, Random House’s exposure doesn’t end there.

Linked by Don Surber, Bob Belvedere at The Camp of the Saints, the Neosexist, the Lonely Conservative and Ed Driscoll — thanks!

Question: Does this anticipated legal action indicate that Palin is planning to run for president, or does it indicate the opposite?

UPDATE II:  Allahpundit has a rather dismissive attitude toward Palin’s prospects of winning a defamation suit, but he seems to be thinking like a lawyer rather than seeing this from the standpoint of the defendant (Random House), faced with clear proof from the Griffin e-mail that McGinniss’s book included what he knew to be unsubstantiated “tawdry gossip.”

McGinniss’s association with Griffin is very damaging to Random House. Griffin claims McGinniss said he was a “huge fan” of his Immoral Minority blog two months after Griffin was proven a liar with the bogus “divorce” rumor story. Why would McGinniss be cordially corresponding with a disgraced rumor-monger? Couldn’t the statement that McGinniss was a “huge fan” of such a person as Griffin be construed as evidence of malice toward Palin?

The two rules of thumb I was taught were, “When in doubt, leave it out” — that is to say, don’t publish something if you aren’t sure of its accuracy — and “If your mother says she loves you, check it out” — Don’t assume the truth of what people tell you.

Allahpundit’s comparison of Palin v. McGinniss, et al., to a Hollywood celebrity suing a tabloid is a poor analogy, given who Palin is and what McGinniss offers as the rationale for his book. McGinniss claims to have exposed Sarah Palin as a dangerous person unfit for public office, and the “tawdry gossip” in his book is part of his case against her.

That’s a helluva lot different, in terms of journalistic purpose, than what the Star or US Weekly might publish about a movie star’s divorce or a singer’s drug habits. Random House has promoted the McGinniss book as a work of serious investigative journalism about an important politician, and it is that alleged seriousness that would justify a Palin lawsuit.

UPDATE III: Both informative and funny:

Over the weekend McGinniss was reportedly complaining that even outlets like Olbermann, Maddow and NPR are canceling his scheduled appearances or refusing to have him on at all. The above might offer a clue as to why. Not many media suits right now are going to want to take part in helping push a bombing book that could end up as an expensive and/or embarrassing legal headache.

When even Rachel Maddow won’t help you promote your anti-Palin book, you’re clearly scraping a new low. At some point, I suspect, the Random House lawyers will tell McGinniss to shut up, lest he provide further evidence of malice for Palin’s lawsuit.

UPDATE IV: We have apparently attracted attention of some Palin Derangement Syndrome sufferers, including the vile Phil Munger, whose comments were deleted. You hideous monsters have plenty of bandwidth at Mudflats, etc., where you can spread your insane filth without being permitted to hijack my bandwidth. Wombat will be advised to wield the troll-hammer at his discretion.

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Category: Books, Sarah Palin
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