Economics commentator Donald Luskin, who operates a website entitled The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid, is known for his furious and unremitting attacks on New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman. So furious and unremitting have these attacks been as to raise the question of whether Luskin was actually daring Krugman to sue for defamation, as when Luskin declared on “Hannity and Colmes” Oct. 27 that Krugman “masquerades as an economic scientist” (whatever one thinks of his politics, Krugman is exceptionally well credentialed as an academic economist; by comparison, columnist Robert Novak let himself in for years of hard-fought litigation when he printed an assertion that Bertell Ollman, a much less well-known economic scholar, “has no status within the profession”). And two months ago Luskin alleged (“Lights-out economics”, National Review Online, Aug. 20) that a statement by Krugman about the Northeast electrical blackout was “one of the few truthful statements I can ever recall him uttering” — inevitably recalling, for defamation-law buffs, Mary McCarthy’s talk-show gibe at Lillian Hellman, which led to one of the American literary world’s most bitter and celebrated lawsuits: “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’ ”

Now, however, it seems that Luskin pictures himself appearing in court as a plaintiff rather than a defendant. Recently he was verbally savaged in the comments section of the left-wing anonyblog “Eschaton” (http://atrios.blogspot.com) and now attorney Jeffrey J. Upton, claiming to represent Luskin, has (“http://atrios.blogspot.com/2003_10_26_atrios_archive.html, scroll to Oct. 29) written to that site’s proprietor (“Atrios”) demanding that the entire comments section in question be taken down within 72 hours on pain of “further legal action”. The threat has provoked a widespread outcry in the blog world, with dozens of sites commenting since yesterday (examples: Mark A.R. Kleiman, Armed Liberal, David Neiwert, Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler). We don’t know how much money Luskin has made on Wall Street, but we would be nervous on behalf of his prospective targets if his pockets prove deep. More: Jack Balkin points out that courts have found website proprietors not liable for hosting outsiders’ libels in their comments section, which leaves us wondering all the more about what happened to AVWeb, above. Stuart Levine discusses possible homeowner’s insurance coverage. (& welcome Curmudgeonly Clerk readers) Update Nov. 5: dispute settled. (& letter to the editor Aug. 16, 2004).

Filed under: bloggers and the law, libel slander and defamation, online speech