Please Sarah Palin, Sue Me!
We have all heard that the holier than thou Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, announced that she will be resigning from the office of Governor in three weeks for apparently no reason. Her press conference was wildly unfocused, vague, and left more questions than answers. This of course has lead to tons of rumors and sparked a media searchlight onto the Governor to figure out exactly why she really is quitting.
The other day, I blogged about a statement Palin’s lawyer made which seemed to indicate that Palin was quitting because she couldn’t handle the jokes that David Letterman and others were making at her expense. Palin herself has talked about a large number of ethics charges which she is dealing with. She claims they are all baseless, but in light of her mavericky resignation, people in Alaska and around the nation are wondering if there might actually be something to one or more of those charges.
One rumored charge in particular dealt with the building of one of Sarah Palin’s homes as a possible payback for a much larger state contract to build a stadium. This has been one of the more popular rumors both in the Governor’s home state and around the nation. The FBI has claimed that no investigation was being conducted, but that has just fueled the rumors of an IRS investigation or perhaps some other agency investigation.
But all this is window dressing for the real issue today. It seems that Sarah Palin was watching television the day after her surprise resignation speech and saw that an Alaskan blogger and radio host was on the MSNBC talking about these rumors. The soon to be ex-Governor apparently flipped out.
On Independence Day weekend, Palin had her lawyer write up a four page letter threatening to sue that blogger for “defamation of character.” Now, I am not a lawyer and don’t know the details of the law, but it has been my understanding that in order to sue for defamation of character, slander, or libel, the claims made must be false and monetary damage must be proven to have taken place as a result. For example, Palin can’t successfully sue (anyone can unsuccessfully sue for anything) David Letterman for any of these things because his jokes didn’t cause her monetary harm. On the other hand, Letterman could sue Palin was slander since her insinuation that he was a pedophile may have caused sponsors to withdrew their sponsorship of his program causing him monetary damages.
This is not the first time Sarah Palin has had an issue with freedom of speech and attempted to push the censorship button. Back in 1996, then Mayor Sarah Palin asked the Wasilla Librarian if she would be okay with banning certain (unnamed) books from the Library. The Librarian said absolutely not. A few months later the Librarian was fired because she “didn’t fully support” Mayor Palin’s policies. Palin was forced to reinstate the Librarian due to pressures from Wasilla’s residents.
Personally, I hope that Sarah Palin sues me too. It would bring a lot more attention to my blog and since such a suit is obviously baseless, I could counter-sue. So what kind of baseless rumor can I make up that would get her attention? I know, I can use the same false charge that she leveled against Barack Obama and David Letterman. I heard a rumor that Sarah Palin pals around with terrorists. I also wouldn’t trust Sarah Palin with my four month old baby… I don’t know what kind of sexual deviant she might be.
Filed under: free speech, palin, Politics
