Medary.com

The latest leftist smear campaign against Rush Limbaugh may have finally crossed the line into actionable defamation.

Jason Whitlock--one of the last sports columnists remaining at the Kansas City Star, features prominently, for a piece he wrote for FoxSports.com.

Ed Driscoll discusses:

I was greeted with a huge front-page box featuring this insipid column from the execrable Jason Whitlock. By way of reminder, Jason Whitlock recently wrote this ridiculous column, which somehow passes for insightful commentary while Limbaugh’s comments about McNabb are evil, thoughtless, and racist. But I digress. The newest basis for the assertion that Limbaugh is an eeeeeevil racist is as follows, according to Whitlock:

Here are two quotes attributed to Limbaugh in a 2006 book, “101 People Who Are Really Screwing America,” by Jack Huberman.

• “You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray (Dr. King’s assassin). We miss you, James. Godspeed.”
• “Let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back. I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”

The first of these quotes has already been debunked most thoroughly, long before Rush’s bid to buy the Rams. It is self-evidently the complete fabrication of someone with a wiki account, which was then picked up by the unscrupulous Huberman and reported as fact (with no citations at all) in his book. The other, also attributed to Huberman, has never been sourced, and Huberman has never cited any original article, or even given any indication as to when this alleged statement was made. Of course, these facts make it utterly impossible to refute the claim; without any date or context, Rush cannot even call witnesses who were present during the alleged confirmation to confirm or deny that he ever made such a statement. It is literally impossible for Limbaugh (or anyone else) to offer convincing proof that they have never at any time made a given statement (other than their own denial, which Rush has already given). It is preposterous to ask anyone to prove that they did not make a statement if you cannot even so much as offer a time and place where the statement is alleged to have occurred.

These inflammatory statements were in fact apparently first made by a semi-anonymous blog commenter. Numerous times. On numerous web sites.

Limbaugh has begun threatening legal action. I hope he follows through on that threat.

Limbaugh is a public figure, so "actual malice" needs to be proven.

Somehow I don't think that will be terribly difficult to do. The upside of being hated by the left is that it is pretty easy to prove that leftists hate you. Some of the people in the Old Media who have mindlessly repeated these smears had better pray that they have never before criticized or made fun of Limbaugh--either on air, via e-mail, or in written correspondence.

Legal discovery is a female dog.

My fondest hope is that is that some of the more egregious Big Media purveyors of the current "Limbaugh is a Racist" smear campaign will be found in a court of law to be guilty of malicious defamation with the intent to illegally interfere with his commercial activity--to whit his participation in a group which is offering to buy the St. Louis Rams NFL team. My understanding of defamation law is that the key for public figures to win at trial is for them to be able to prove actual harm.

I'm not a lawyer, but not being allowed to participate in an ownership group for a pro football team would seem to me to be actual harm.

Ironically enough, Rush may wind up owning a good chunk of the Internet. Or ESPN.

As Limbaugh has said: "Lord, thank you for my enemies."

And remember, RAAAAACIST!!! has five A's.