Posted on 03/22/2012 2:21:42 PM PDT by blam
I wanted to call in and let the listeners know what I thought about those two stories, especially the one about the teacher. That guy needs to be fired.
Agreed, but there's a lot of thin-skinned-ness going around here whenever a liberal windbag media type or comic talks about a strong conservative woman, you must admit. Not just the 'c' word. There was a lot of uproar when Laura Ingraham was called a slut (I was offended).
But you're right that some of it is PC nonsense. For that reason, many states have dropped disparaging a woman's sexual virtue from the list of statements that constitute defamation per se. In some of the states where there are cases on the books stating that 'slut' is defamation per se as a matter of law, it would be interesting to see whether an appellate court addressing the issue today would follow precedent or determine that times have changed and the existing law no longer is relevant. The Georgia Court of Appeals addressed it quite recently and held that 'slut' was still defamation per se in Georgia.
Florida's a weird situation. On the civil side, courts no longer treat impugning a woman's virtue as per se defamation, but an ancient statute still makes it criminal defamation per se
As for Dan Akroyd, it was clear that it was a skit and a joke. No defamation. When people repeated the catch-phrase, it was clear it was a joke.
I, too, find the 'c' word much more offensive.
Implying something, like GCB . . . well, to which particular GCB is it directed? And what does it imply that's defamatory?
Of Limbaugh's comments, 'slut' is the one that got the attention, but it wasn't the one that worried Limbaugh's attorneys, the way I put the pieces together. 'Slut' is arguably an opinion (although Limbaugh was basing that opinion on the amount of sex Fluke was supposedly having, and Fluke never talked about that - Limbaugh made all of that up).
When I wrote my ill-advised vanity about the ins-and-outs of a defamation lawsuit, I pointed out one statement of Limbaugh's in which he said that Fluke had admitted being immoral and base, and more. That's not opinion and Limbaugh was basing it on words he put in Fluke's mouth.
Limbaugh's staff deleted that statement from the 2/29 show transcript several days later - the day before the then-edited transcripts for 2/29 and 3/1 were removed from his website. He kept in the 'slut' comments from 2/29 and 3/1. Those either didn't bother his attorneys or (more likely) were already too infamous to remove. But they surgically removed the part most troublesome to an attorney (and to this attorney), even if they if it wasn't the one that cause the lefties to put their hands in the air and scream.
“Limbaugh boycott fizzles”
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/53467
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