Remove all sharp objects from the viewing area, here comes a Pundita screed.
"Pundita, dear, did you know that last night your idol Steve Diamond threatened to sue1 some poor leftist website because a blogger there called him a few names?
Boris in Jackson Heights"
Dear Boris:
Really? That sounds awfully thin-skinned. However, before passing judgment, let me see what Dr Diamond had to say about his reasons for such a threat:
[...] Fortunately, defamation laws protect victims of this kind of thing and so I sent the following letter to the managers of the Corrente website:
"Dear _____,
I am writing to you to request that you remove the post by an individual known as “Bringiton” entitled “Lies, Damnable Lies and Political Commentary” on the Correntewire.com website, together with the associated comment sections and the follow up posts by each of you. In addition, in conformance with California Civil Code Section 48a, I ask that you publish a correction and retraction.
I do not believe that you have exercised the due care that is expected of the owners and managers of a website.
I believe these posts to be defamatory of me and my professional work and of my reputation as a lawyer and a professor of law, which depends heavily on my widely established and long held reputation for veracity and accuracy.
As long as those posts remain on your site where they are accessible to the wider public, they damage my reputation and thus my ability to earn a living. The”Lies, Damnable Lies” post claims 1) that my blog posts on Global Labor, which state that there is a relationship between Senator Obama and Bill Ayers, are “unfounded accusations” and “bullshit”; 2) that I am a “demagogue”; and 3) that I have an undefined relationship to an entity Bringiton calls the “vast right wing conspiracy.”
As to the first claim, I have not “accused” anyone of anything. My statements about the relationship between Senator Obama and Mr. Ayers are factual. There is ample evidence of the longstanding relationship between the Senator and Mr. Ayers, particularly the fact that they worked closely together on the $110 million dollar Chicago Annenberg Challenge grant program as detailed on my blog, Global Labor from as early as 1995. On my blog I am fastidious about qualifying statements that are speculation or conjecture.
As to the second charge, there is no evidence provided by “Bringiton” that I am a demagogue. Nor is there any proof of the existence of a right wing conspiracy or that I am associated with it in any manner whatsoever. I have been on the left in a very public manner my entire adult life. To suggest otherwise is, as I stated, at the outset, damaging to my reputation.
While I will consider the matter settled if you remove the blog post by the end of today, I reserve my right to pursue any and all other claims against you or the website. If your site is represented by legal counsel, please refer this letter to them and provide me with their contact information. In addition, I request that you provide me with the name and contact information for Bringiton so that I may write to him or to his legal counsel.
Well, Boris, perhaps what irritated him was that Corrente cutouts inserted fatuous excuses at his Global Labor blog, Rezko Watch and No Quarter about why he was repeatedly unable to access Corrente's comment section when he attempted to rebut the Bringiton blogger's statements about him.
But live and let live, I say. We must learn to practice patience and not fly off the handle every time someone tries to destroy our professional reputation.
Besides, there are less expensive ways than a court battle to reply to one's enemies.
<—Former senior fellow at Council on Foreign Relations who called Pundita a Crypto-Anarchist
<—Former high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official who called Pundita an agent provocateur
<—Former minor attaché at British Embassy in Washington, DC who called Pundita a bimbo1 Correction: Steve Diamond writes "I did not threaten to sue, I just asked Corrente to obey the law."
4 comments:
pundita-
i don't know if you were referring to any comment by me or not, but i'm not a "cutout".
i described how corrente works quite accurately with respect to "registrations". i did so with the specific purpose of explaining why getting access might bed slow.
i also promised to post steve diamond's rebuttal there, which i did.
the other two commenters comments here were also well-intentioned and accurate descriptions of how corrente works. i can see no reason whatsoever to refer to them as "cutouts".
i happened to have defended diamond's work there and generally admire it for its interesting view of chicago politics.
i am also an admirer of rezkowatch's work and have made that clear in previous comments.
i think it would be well if you did not paint with so broad a brush. doing so gratuitously offends this rezkowatch admirer very much.
pundita -
if you go here at corrente
you will find steve diamond's rebuttal posted by me early afternoon yesterday.
Yesterday afternoon, eh? Now just see how much misunderstanding could have been avoided if you had notified Steve Diamond before 6:45 PM, when he published his letter to Corrente, that you had posted his rebuttal. As for my painting with a broad brush -- don't whine; it's unseemly. Be happy I'm always in a good mood on Friday the 13th, or all the fellows at Corrente would be serenading each other from atop a lily pad in a Georgia swamp. Just remember, Steve Diamond has people.
Go for it, Professor Diamond.
I'm so glad to see how you responded, bloggers, and posters, should learn to face the real world, facing the consequences of scurrilous claims, and threats of physical violence.
Some seem to feel they can act, and write with impunity, it simply doesn't work that way, ever.
I certainly hope they start prosecuting the hackers, too.
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