Title says it all: “Let presidential candidates sue one another for libel”. Oh, great, then White House races will start depending on who’s more skilled at manipulating the judicial process (although now that you mention it Bush v. Gore has already gone far to advance that proposition). (Joseph H. Cooper, Christian Science Monitor, Mar. 16).
8 Comments
The old Bush stole the election angle again. What no one from the democratic side wants to admit is that Gore did just about everything he could to loose the election; didn’t even carry his home state. Was there ever a winner who didn’t carry their home state?
The libel angle would be more interesting if the candidates had to do all the speaking themselves, rather than use mouthpieces.
I think nevins went a little too far in interpreting Walter’s comment. WO was merely saying that the legal manipulation and resultant SCOTUS ruling were really bad. He hasn’t questioned whether the end result would have been the same.
I think most reasonable people believe the final outcome was right, but that the way it was obtained was either wrong, or questionable. History has proven that proper vote counting in Florida shows that Bush had more votes. It’s just a shame that the lawyers couldn’t let the process play itself out justly. That would have taken the air out of the “Bush stole the election” claims (though of course it wouldn’t have stopped them).
Generally, I oppose legal immunities. Yet, I do not know if a defamation claim during a campaign would be good or bad.
Defamation requires the statement of a false fact. So, adjectives and opinions remain privileged. Candidate A is an idiot with horrible judgment. OK (in the US, not in Europe). That is a true statement of my opinion.
Candidate A used his government computer for personal use. Not OK, unless true.
If politicians had 1000’s of hours of their time consumed in litigation, would that be good or bad?
1) Less of their time could be spent destroying our nation; 2) all politicians would support restraining overlawyering; 3) the flinging of false facts might be deterred.
On the other hand, this measure may take us down the path to Zimbabwe on the Potomac. “Insulting the President,” is “criminal libel.”
I do not automatically dismiss this silly sounding idea. Law is human experimentation. Any change in the NY Times v Sullivan (1964) precedent should be tested in a small jurisdiction. If the results are positive, repeat the test in increasingly larger jurisdictions.
From
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1095
The study’s key result: When the consortium tried to simulate a recount of all uncounted ballots statewide using six different standards for what constituted a vote, under each scenario they found enough new votes to have narrowly given the Florida election–and by extension the presidency–to Al Gore. Under three models that attempted to duplicate the various partial recounts that were asked for by Gore or ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, however, Bush maintained a slight margin of victory.
To Al Gore the terrorism threat was more important than clearing brush ala Ronald Reagan. America lost the 2000 election.
In other words, Gore’s cynical legal strategy in Florida blew up in his face. Please don’t chalk that up to idealism, William.
Mr. Coleman,
A keen interest in the terrorism threat in 2000 is pragmatism, not idealism.
Clearing brush instead of responding to the PDF warning of Al Queda’s determination to strike in the United States is incompetence, which incompetence was manifest prior to Mr. Bush’s election.
What is cynical about chalanging election results? Such challenges are as American as apple pie.
There are terabytes (at least) of internet discussion about the 2000 election; lt’s not go into it all here.
I won’t even give my opinion of the whole mess (which is hard for me to resist), other than agree with MF and the basic idea that the precedent set was bad.
Pass the pie. I’m just talking about his legal stratergy.