Thursday, February 3, 2011

The Battle Against Bullshit

Toodling around at The Corner I saw this from John J. Miller:
I’ve probably never done this before, but I’m going to leap to the defense of Jimmy Carter. This legal action against him is the very definition of a frivolous lawsuit. If plaintiffs had to pay costs when they lost lawsuits, we wouldn’t see nonsense like this.
Quite right, the suit's bullshit and woe betide Regnery if such suits gain traction. Or, you know, The National Review. And The Corner!

There's more:
By the way, Carter hasn’t been “officially charged with fraud.” He has merely been accused of it. Big difference.
Who's he talking to? Oh right, the bit's titled "re: President Carter’s ‘Fraud’" so there must be an item further down. And there is:
A provocative case — Unterberg et al. v. Jimmy Carter et al. — is under way against former president Carter for his analysis (if that is the right word) of the Israel-Palestine crisis, Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid. The Washington Post reports that five dissatisfied customers, to put it mildly, have filed a class-action lawsuit in Manhattan federal court against Carter and his publisher, Simon & Schuster, alleging that the 2006 book ought to have been classified as a work of fiction.
Provocative! Thanks to Miller the piece has been updated:
Correction: This post originally carried the title “President Carter Officially Charged with Fraud.” The mistake has since been changed. The fault is my own.
Here is the new title:
President Carter Officially Sued for Fraud
All better.

5 comments:

Smut Clyde said...

five dissatisfied customers, to put it mildly

What part is being put mildly here? Are we to infer that the plaintiffs are something more than customers? Inquiring minds are all agog to learn more about their status.
Perhaps the "five" is the gentle understatement, and in fact there are more like 5.2 of them.

Open Cahoots said...

Plaintiffs can indeed be ordered to pay costs. Filing a frivolous lawsuit =/= immediately winning the lottery.

Substance McGravitas said...

It all hinges on how official the suit is.

Open Cahoots said...

Imma officially sue the publishers of the Bible. It is presented as non-fiction but I suspect there's a couple of misstatements of fact in it.

Substance McGravitas said...

That's the kind of silly bullshit that I would love to waste everyone's time with if I was a millionaire, but, you know, wasting the court's time and such when they have OBAMACARE to gut.