...my candidate for President of the United States is!
If, in this election cycle, the McCain campaign is going to do the UNPRECIDENTED and hold steadfast to lies and irrefutable slander, rather than succumb to near universal criticism and independent fact checkers, than Obama has NO CHOICE but file defamation suit under the first amendment of the consititution.
That's right. Let's file suit against the McCain campaign and create a media FIRE STORM. (Why all the caps? you may be wondering about now. Simple - I live in a world where no one gets to define the truth themselves, truth is an absolute and WE ALL HAVE ACCESS TO IT. Any thing else is PERVERSE. Let's get on with the argument.)
So back to it: In 1964, the Supreme court case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan established the legal standard that allowed free reporting of civil rights campaigns in southern states (where they would want to sue the press. It is among the most important decisions in defense of freedom of the press.
But, more important for this argument, it set the gold standard requirement for all defamation and libel cases from that point on: First, prove that the publisher of the statement in question knows that the statement is false. OR (not and, OR) Prove that the publisher acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Because of the extremely high burden of proof on the plaintiff, and the difficulty in proving essentially what is inside a person's head, such cases — when they involve public figures — rarely prevail. But, since the McCain campaign REFUSES to back down even after the facts ARE CONCRETELY REFUTED BY ANY GROUP THAT COULD MATTER TO THE CAMPAIGN - the case should be made. This second step of the McCain campaign not backing down neccessitates that the case should be filed.
Your thoughts...
BTW...and this is TOTALLY off topic...but if you Youtube "service forum" you don't hit Barack Obama's cnn interview until the bottom of the page, above which are numerous copies of McCain's interview even though Obama's has just as high of rating (FIVE STARS) and more people have watched it. Someone explain this to me, please!
Peace out,
Prof. Harzep