O'Reilly, Nazis, Slander, Libel, and Kos

Didn't Bill O'Reilly engage in slander or libel when he compared Daily Kos members to Nazi's and KKK members?

See here for an example of what he said.

Because this is hate of the worst order. It's like the Ku Klux Klan. It's like the Nazi party. There's no difference here. People should die. Bill O'Reilly, Fox News Network, 16 July 2007.

I think when it's on TV its slander, and if it's in print, it's libel, but I could be confused about that. I'm not a lawyer, but I've read my AP Style Manual and Libel Handbook so I do have a passing acquaintance with how libel law works.

This seems like a pretty clear cut case of libel/slander to me. One can not apply labels like "Nazi" or "KKK" to Daily Kos as a whole in any responsible way.

It's incredibly irresponsible for a national cable talk show host to engage in such behavior.

Shouldn't Daily Kos be suing Bill O'Reilly?

The only absolute defense against libel/slander is the truth: there is not a snow ball's chance in hell O'Reilly has that on his side. Accusations of parity with Nazis or KKK certainly seem defamatory.

What do you think?

My Dad watches FOX News, and knows I read and post to Daily Kos. O'Reilly really doesn't have the right to be telling my Dad that me, and the rest of us, are mass murderers. Nor does FOX news have the right to give him a bully pulpit, it would seem to me.

In principle, I think I'd rather tend to err on the side of protecting free speech, and ignoring such things. But O'Reilly really seems to have crossed the line, and violated civil law.

Of course, even if what O'Reilly said is actionable in civil court, there is the very legitimate question of whether or not such civil action is feasible, or strategically useful.

•  I don't know the law around name-calling

  but I do know that it is perfectly customary between opposing political camps.

  If Faux News security officers actually came to the homes of critics, as has been threatened on the air, it seems to me folks should go right ahead and get sue-happy.

  But as long as it's a case of "sticks and stones", I'd say we just continue to give as good as we get.  

  And may the most credible win!

  by lgmcp on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:06:45 PM PDT

  •  Referencing BO being a Sexual Predator

    When was the last time any Democrat went on TV (any program) and referenced Bill O'Reilly's sexcual harassment lawsuit?

    At the very least, they can argue that Bill O'Reilly settled a lawsuit which called him a sexual predator.

    by PatriciaVa on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:11:59 PM PDT

  •  Dangerous teddy bears

    Look out, Bill!
    

    by Tigana on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 04:26:28 PM PDT

  •  Mackris V. O'Reilly Oratorio - Listen here

    A bit like Handel, a bit like opera. :p
    http://www.mackrisvoreilly.com/...

    by Tigana on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 04:29:30 PM PDT

    •  How to make Falafel - Video

      Mmmmmm. Middle Eastern Food.
      http://www.youtube.com/...

      by Tigana on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 04:39:42 PM PDT

    •  Wiki on Luffa or Loofah

      http://en.wikipedia.org/...

      by Tigana on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 04:40:31 PM PDT

•  Go after his Advertisers

  While I'm not opposed to the lawsuit, I insist we must respond in-kind.  They go after one sponsor, we go after two.  They go after another one, we go after four.

  Looks like we are, finally...

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

  Liberals Go After Fox News Advertisers

  By DAVID BAUDER
  The Associated Press
  Friday, July 27, 2007; 4:21 PM

  NEW YORK -- Liberal activists are stepping up their campaign against Fox News Channel by pressuring advertisers not to patronize the network.

  MoveOn.org, the Campaign for America's Future and liberal blogs like DailyKos.com are asking thousands of supporters to monitor who is advertising on the network. Once a database is gathered, an organized phone-calling campaign will begin, said Jim Gilliam, vice president of media strategy for Brave New Films, a company that has made anti-Fox videos.

  The groups have successfully pressured Democratic presidential candidates not to appear at any debate sponsored by Fox, and are also trying to get Home Depot Inc. to stop advertising there.

  by PatriciaVa on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:09:27 PM PDT

•  no, I don't think so

  most of us are made up names. It is no worse than the stuff we say about him....well maybe a little worse.  I don't think we have ever wished him death.

  But the best revenge on him is to take his audience by mocking him and being more fun than his stupid pay to post site.

  by TeresaInPa on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:10:27 PM PDT

  •  Good Point

    That's a good point about screen names.

    I suspect that only people with real names attached to Daily Kos would be able to take legal action forward (like, say, Markos).

    I'm really undecided on whether that is at all a good idea, but I am very curious about it. The audacity of the irresponsibility of Bill O'Reilly and Fox News got me thinking about it.

    Name-calling is one thing. Associating your political enemies with mass-murders and lynching racists on national TV, and supporting that claim again, seems like something a little bit different.

    But maybe not.

    And I really don't like the idea of political debates turning into litigation fests. But then again, this is not a political debate. This is one man using a bully pulpit to spread blatant untruths far and wide, so I'm torn.

    by teece on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:15:49 PM PDT

    •  OMGosh

      look at your name.  That has been my nic name my whole life and that is how my mother spells it. I have always spelled it Teese (unfortunately people think it is pronounced tease..duh)

      Teece or Teesa....funny, I have never met another.  And it is because my siblings couldn't say Teresa.

      Now to the point.  I would like to know also.  At the least I would love to see him and people like Coulter investigated for hate speech.  I think it is very possible for them to incite violence or property damage.
      There was an incident locally where someone went around spray painting the word spic all over houses and mail boxes.  It is due to all the recent talk about immigration and lots of Latino people moving from NYC.  They aren't illegal.  Most of them are Puerto Rican. But some of the dumb dumbs here don't know the difference.
      Right wing pundits feed this ignorance.  They have really hurt our society.

      by TeresaInPa on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:37:28 PM PDT

      •  Ha!

        I'm teece because my initials are TC, and that's a nickname that got pronounced teece! It's also a last name, something I didn't know until I Googled my screen name once.

        From some of the other posts here, I'm beginning to think what O'Reilly said was legal, if completely irresponsible and inane.

        But I'm starting to think that the day will come when something has to be done about the degree to which Republicans, and their propaganda outlet, FOX News, are willing to prominently compare anyone left of the Pope to a [ insert vile, evil epithet here]. And the degree to which the Right is willing to publish completely fact-free, yellow journalism on a massive scale.

        And I'm not talking about cherry-picked quotes from Little Green Footballs or Bill O' site: but rather, statements by prominent elected Republicans, and their mouth pieces like Bill O, and op-ed writers across the land.

        They are doing something nasty, the likes of Bill O, and if they keep getting bolder, they will be doing something dangerous, methinks.

        But it's all very complicated, because I also firmly and completely believe that Bill O is entitled to his opinion and the right to express it.

        by teece on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 03:11:17 PM PDT

    •  Markos can't sue either

      Well, he could, but the judge would toss him. Markos is a public figure.

      by overlander on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 03:13:52 PM PDT

      •  Wait...

        I'm familiar with the public/private figure distinction, but I don't see how it applies here.

        Saying Markos is a Nazi is slander. Saying he is like a Nazi may or may not be (I'm not saying either, and Bill O kind-of, sort-of isn't either. He is: but he is doing so in a slimy way that protects him from liability, to an extent).

        Outing Markos as having embarrassing peccadillo X is probably protected, because he is a public figure.

        If Markos were not a public figure, that might not be protected.

        But this seems to fall into the first case (even though now I'm thinking it's not actionable as libel/slander), so the public/private figure thing doesn't seem to apply.

        Am I confused?

        by teece on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 03:28:04 PM PDT

•  Opinion cannot be libelous.

  by ben masel on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:11:30 PM PDT

  •  Succinct and accurate.

    However, opinion can be distinctly harmful to profits, where advertisers are targeted.  

    by lgmcp on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:22:19 PM PDT

  •  Not so Clear Cut in USA

    Apparently the US Supreme Court has ruled that opinions are not automatically un-falsifiable, and thus opinions are not automatically protected from suit in the USA.

    At least according to Wikipeda, which jives with what I can remember.

    Libel/slander law in the United States is murky; both because we try to balance things against the 1st Amendment, and because it varies from state to state.

    by teece on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 05:59:49 PM PDT

•  I don't think it qualifies

  Saying that we're "like" Nazis or KKK is a statement of opinion. He didn't say that we are Nazis or KKK.

  by kyril on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:11:33 PM PDT

  •  I Can See that...

    ... being a good defense, but it's not at a cut-and-dried case of this being mere opinion to me. Look at what the next line is: "there is no difference" [between Daily Kos, Nazis, and the KKK].

    It's opinion, yes, but it is also blatantly obviously false.

    There is not a single incident of a Daily Kos member killing any body, executing jews, invading nation, engaging in lynching, etc...

    To the degree that violence is ever advocated on here, it is by individuals, and it is pretty damn limited. And rarely, if ever, serious.

    by teece on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:20:58 PM PDT

•  He has to be taken seriously

  Before he can be taken to court, I'd think. I just find it impossible to take him the least bit seriously, when he does shit like this:

  by Hannibal on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:15:19 PM PDT

•  Libel? Libel, you say?

  LOL.

  Oh, man, I'm starting to get that queasy feeling all over again.

  {Sorry.  Never mind.}

  by Karmafish on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:15:26 PM PDT

•  Forcing him to deal with a lawsuit

  could put him on the defensive, and make him a greater liability to his sponsors and producers.  This might help tone things down a while until the lawsuit is decided.  Might be nice as an election year approaches to hamstring one of the rightwing propoganda catapaults.

  Otheriwse, I suppose some might feel compelled to live up to what he's called us.  Hey, maybe we need to create a Kos Youth Party?  Maybe create a Kos Kids Kamp?  Young Kossacks groups at colleges?  Kossacks at airport terminals passing out literature?  Anyone for making snappy Kos-tic remarks on his phone-in segments?

  by antirove on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:15:31 PM PDT

  •  Could also make him a martyr

    OMG! I'm being attacked by the libryl left!

    by groggy on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 03:45:32 PM PDT

•  the only catch here is

  Markos is the only one who has standing to file suit (unless O'Reily singled out specific members with these insults).

  Way back in the days when Tom Delay wasn't a jailbird, he claimed "the" Daily Kos was an organization that raised money for terrorists. Considering the far more specific nature of that statement, coupled with it's total untruth, Markos probably could have taken DeLay (then House Majority Leader) for everything he owned. But be he decided the site was bigger then the small insults of one evil little man.

  Considering that was the House Majority Leader, I can't even imagine how tiny Markos thinks Mr. Falafel Thing.

  by Goldfish on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:16:23 PM PDT

•  You obviously have never read Star, Us Weekly

  and all the other tabliods. Bill is the InTouch of political journalism, and if you look at the titles of the celebrity gossip magazines, it shoudl tell you that the libel laws here are pretty loose.

  If it was England, yeah, game on.

  Here, not so much.

  Just go after his advertisors, like he did to Daily Kos.

  by pinche tejano on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:17:05 PM PDT

•  O'Reilly is a scumbag; however

  he said what he claimed to be his opinion, and opinions aren't subject to slander or libel actions.

  The occasional dickhead will post a comment saying he hopes Tony Snow or Dick Cheney will die.  99%+ of Kossacks are appalled by these comments, but legally O'Reilly can cherrypick the tasteless comments and call this a hate site like the KKK. There's no legal definition of a 'hate site', i.e. "35% of content must be in support of violence or death".  Thus, as long as the controversial statements were on dailykos.com, even if they represent less than 1% of all content, there's no basis for slander; O'Reilly has got to know this or he wouldn't have said what he said.

  by Greasy Grant on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:27:48 PM PDT

  •  I think this makes good sense.

    I bet in that light it would be tough to press a case.

    by teece on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:33:43 PM PDT

•  like many of his ridiculous statements

  I think it backfired on him

  There is no such thing as bad publicity.

  Unless your OJ of course

  by 59stevenm on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:30:41 PM PDT

•  One Problem

  O'Reilly quoted certain cherry picked posts and took them out of context.  But the fact remains that they are literally true.  Accordingly, truth is an absolute defense to all defamation torts such as libel and slander.  It is O'Reilly's opinion that "The Daily Kos" should police the posts, or something along those lines.  His opinion, no matter how ludicrous and/or hypocritical considering his own site's crazy posts, cannot be defamatory.  So there is no case.  Worse is if a case were filed and O'Reilly raises (literal out of context) truth as a defense, imagine how he would spin that.

  by zip the pusa on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 02:53:11 PM PDT

  •  Sounds like how we got into Iraq

    by groggy on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 03:50:27 PM PDT

  •  "The Daily Kos"

    Didn't he just call it "The Kos"? I vaguely remember a night or two later when it was pointed out to him that hate speech was on his own site, he replied, "Yeah, I know what you're gonna say. 'The Kos' sent somebody over to put that on my site!". That slippery weasle can lie his way out of anything.

    by William Domingo on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 04:11:51 PM PDT

•  Perhaps this link will help?

  Wikipedia.org: Slander and Libel under US Laws

  by Shaviv on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 04:06:44 PM PDT

•  Unless he names individual names

  then he's addressing the group, and unless there is a way to distinguish a member of this group, there is no proof of harm.

  by Dcoronata on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 04:17:14 PM PDT