Huh? Judith Regan avers that she was libeled. The libel is that she allegedly made anti-Semitic remarks:
"They fired Judith without cause on a bogus, trumped-up claim that she had used an anti-Semitic remark with one of her lawyers. She didn't, and we found a witness who backs Judith."
Mr. Fields said the lawsuit is also about "libel," because the allegations that Ms. Regan made anti-Semitic remarks "is tremendously destructive for her."
To play the race/religion card is to accuse someone else of anti-Semitism or racism not to be yourself accused of these sins and respond at law . This is precisely the opposite what Jesse Jackson does when he extorts money from corporations. He alleges them to have committed acts of racial insensitivity and requires them to pay his foundation money and submit to his agitprop reeducation seminars.
Jesse Jackson cannot but be deflated at the prospect of arming those he torments with real legal weapons to counter his antics. You must turn the world upside down indeed to claim that it is I who has this "wholly backwards."
You raise First Amendment grounds for opposing Judith Regan in this lawsuit. To support this you cite the situation in Great Britain, a country without a written constitution, and no First Amendment, and, of course, no New York Times vs. Sullivan. and even if Great Britain were possessed of these things, the factual circumstance you contrive is again, "wholly backwards." Muslims in Great Britain who bring such libel suits allege acts of anti-Semitism (they are after all many of them Semites as well as Muslims of other ethnicities) and seek to restrain speech which allegedly is anti-Semitic. Judith Regan's lawsuit would support speech which is allegedly anti-Semitic. Judith Regan would force compensation from those who maliciously play that anti-Semitic/racism card. Jesse Jackson, manipulating civil rights statutes, intimidates people from exercising their free speech rights concerning race. Who has it "wholly backwards?"
You say,On the law you are wrong too. Since the NY Times v Sullivan constructive malice is sufficient.. I was able to find the opinion by Google so let's see what the Supreme Court actually held the New York Times vs Sullivan:
The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with "actual malice" - that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.
NEW YORK TIMES CO. v. SULLIVAN, 376 U.S. 254 (1964)
Page 376 U.S. 254, 280
I do not know what is happened since this opinion, it is difficult for me to follow these things from here in Germany and I have not done so for 20 years, but I do have some recollection that constructive malice has not been introduced to modify the requirement of actual malice in establishing the tort, but only in establishing punitive damages. Although the article does not explicitly say it, it is a reasonable to suppose that some portion of the claimed $100 million in damages would come from punitive damages. Hence my observation that a collateral motive for the liable, such as pecuniary advantage, would need to be shown to establish malice. Some sort of malice, however defined, must be proven for her to prevail. The free speech rights of the defendants prevail unless the speech is "malicious", however defined.
Whatever the standard of proof, it is clear that Judith Regan has a very high hill to climb indeed if she is to prevail which is only another way of saying that the free speech prerogatives of the alleged libelers would be more than adequately protected. The effect of The New York Times versus Sullivan, after all, was to strengthen not to weaken the constitutional rights of free speech. There never was a First Amendment right to liable, per se.
So we come full circle to my original observation: Reagan must prove that the allegation was false, known to be false, made with some degree or character of malice. Under these strengthened guarantees of free speech, concern for the free speech rights of mankind in similar circumstances is misplaced.
Which brings us full circle back to your original observation which was not a free speech position but a moral position having nothing to do whatsoever with the preservation of our free speech rights:
Being the second mistress to a man whose wife was pregnant, consumating their affair in a post 9/11 apartment designated for emergency workers wasn’t enough to damage the rep of a woman who published a murderer’s memoirs?
If she wins they should give her a penny.
Judith Regan's rights to civil justice do not depend on the morality she maintains in her boudoir. She's not alleging that their reputation as a vestal virgin has been besmirched, she is alleging that she has falsely been accused of being an anti-Semite. She claims that affects her career in the publishing world, surely one cannot dispute that false allegations of anti-Semitism could be career killers in this culture. One of the reasons I maintain my avatar and nom-de-plume, as is explained in my about page, is to do my bit to make the world safe against liberals constricting our free speech by playing the race card.
The best thing for the conservative cause, for the protection of real free speech, would be for Judith Regan to be awarded $100 million and have that award affirmed by the United States Supreme Court.
