Damon Linker writes at THE WEEK:
Is National Review doomed?
The conservative movement’s leading magazine faces a lawsuit that could bring it to its knees.
This part made me laugh:
The ideological descendants of the Birchers have since taken their revenge. Today they are the conservative movement’s most passionate supporters and foot soldiers. But they demand a steady diet of red meat, and National Review now exists in part to provide it.
Really? John Birchers?
Here’s a somewhat less volatile point of his argument, but still equally funny:
‘In July, Judge Natalia Combs Greene rejected a motion to dismiss the suit. The defendants appealed, and last week D.C. Superior Court Judge Frederick Weisberg rejected the motion again, opening the door for the discovery phase of the lawsuit to begin’
I guess he didn’t do much research into that fiasco and judge Natalia Combs Greene to see the whole story of how she reversed the plaintiff and the defendant in her ruling, which was later nullified by a competent judge.
Let’s say for the sake of entertainment purposes that Mann does win the lawsuit, how will he prove damages? Given Mann’s own propensity for self promotion, vitriol, and foot-in-mouth moments, IMHO Mann does more damage to his own reputation than anyone else. If Mann winning that lawsuit that were to happen, it would probably be a symbolic damages award, like $1. If the judge really wanted to send a message about frivolous lawsuits from climate scientists, he could make it 97 cents.
Read it all here: http://theweek.com//article/index/255756/is-national-review-doomed
But, the funniest part of it all, is the writer himself, Damon Linker, who could be a every-Mann climate scientist clone.
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Oh now, you know how that side thinks – if you WISH something to be True hard enough, then it WILL be True!!! Right???
Fly, Tinkerbell, Fly!!!!
Didn’t I see him in one of Elmer’s videos? 😎
What is “The Week”? Never heard of it, and not going to feed the views by clicking on the link.
Mann can’t win unless he can get the defendants to cave. That is the goal, and the point of the trash-talking by the flunkies. Meh.
Damon Linker apparently doesn’t know that one of the early battles of the National Review involved W. F. Buckley reading the Birchers out of the conservative movement.
Damon Linker…another “reporter” missing Mr. Mann’s lawyers’ involvement with cap and trade and other climate lobbying?
Several years ago, there was a book written by a coastal elitist entitled “What’s Wrong with Kansas”.
The premise was that Kansans consistently voted agains their own self-interests and weren’t smart enough to know that “progressives” would be better for them than the conservative louts they keep electing.
Leaving that premise aside, let’s pursue the logic, and ask the question “What’s wrong with journalists”?
Can it really be that they are so stupid that they don’t recognize the consequences of the potential for Mann’s lawsuit to completely emasculate anti-SLAPP legislation?
Why is the ACLU the lone “progressive” group to recognize this threat?
I don’t want to be pessimistic. But this case will be tried in front of a Washington DC jury, one of the most virulently ignorant and left wing jury pools in the nation. If it goes to a jury, there’s really no telling how things will come out.
Slate is also on the record predicting NR’s demise.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/07/24/antiscience_defamation_climate_scientist_michael_mann_lawsuit_to_move_forward.html
With any luck, the discovery phase will include a subpoena for Mann’s ‘Back to 1400 CENSORED’ directory. And if Mann accidentally deleted it, we all know where to find a copy. Apart from the knowing crock of MBH98, the directory proves he in fact did do the R^2 verification test that he denied doing in testimony before congress.
That’s Manns day job, he dress up to be a climate scientist and wood bender.
Bizarre. Wm. F. Buckley, Jr’s National Review was the house organ of the conservative movement, and one of the greatest services that Buckley did for the movement was keeping the Bircher nuts marginalized. That’s why, when Reagan won his two landslides, he had the huge advantage of leading the “sane” Party. Nearly all the nuts were on the Left, in those days, thanks largely to Buckley.
Sane, moderate, patriotic Americans, who wanted sensible, competent leadership, voted for Reagan, because they knew he was level-headed and stable. Those swing voters won’t vote for Bircher nutcases or a Party that courts them.
I miss the days when nearly all the nutcases were on the Left, when Buckley kept the Bircher nuts tamped down. These days there are almost as many nutcases on the Right as on the Left. We seem to be overrun with Birchers, Ron Paul acolytes, Alex Jones zombies, and more. No wonder we’re losing so many elections.
This continues to expose something that the left appears blind to. Conservatives don’t take “marching orders” from “leaders”. Not even a little. We might listen to conservatives and nod and agree with them, or become aware of an issue from someone like Rush or Ann or even Sean… but we usually come to our own conclusions about how we feel about that issue.
Everyone I know who leans left, however, will come away from a tv or radio show with a completely fleshed out and unwavering opinion on an issue, formed and created for them.
These Mann supporters don’t realize that every action and claim like this makes their opponents snicker. I was never told what to think about Mann… his own words and actions were enough for that. As far as I can tell, his own words proved to me that he is a fraud, and his FAR over the top faux outrage shows me that he knows he’s been caught out.
Frank says:
January 30, 2014 at 2:54 pm
“But this case will be tried in front of a Washington DC jury, one of the most virulently ignorant and left wing jury pools in the nation. “
That is why we have appellate courts. If it even made it that far, there is no way an adverse verdict would pass the SCOTUS. The only question is the defendants’ staying power.
There is still DISCOVERY
http://wakeforestlawreview.com/when-staying-discovery-stays-justice-analyzing-motions-to-stay-discovery-when-a-motion-to-dismiss-is-pending
As I recall, one of the Bircher’s main goals was to get U.S. outa the U.N.
Their other causes may be zany, but they got that right!
What an ignoranus. With just a little research he would have found that National Review’s founder William F. Buckley, Jr. basically threw John Birch out of the modern conservative movement way back in 1962
What is the status of the lawsuit.
I think I am out of sync with the proceedings or I am conflating the Mark Steyn suit.
Doesn’t Mann have to re-file against NR? I was hoping he would because of discovery and wagered that he wouldn’t.
Did he actually refile? Help?
Wayne says:
January 30, 2014 at 3:13 pm
What an ignoranus. With just a little research he would have found that National Review’s founder William F. Buckley, Jr. basically threw John Birch out of the modern conservative movement way back in 1962
Did you not read the article?
“National Review once devoted itself to raising the tone of conservative intellectual discourse. As part of this civilizing mission, its founding editor summarily excommunicated the paranoid cranks of the John Birch Society from the conservative movement.”
Now who is the ignoranus hmmm?
Mark and two Cats, it’s not the Bircher’s causes that make them nuts, it’s their beliefs. They claim that “The Conspiracy” (and you can hear the capital letters when they say it!) is secretly running the whole world, that the world’s apparent governments are actually puppets controlled by a gigantic shadowy world government led by the Rockefellers, the Bilderbergers, the CFR, and the Trilateral Commission.
One year they had a national meeting at a hotel here in Raleigh, NC, and I got invited to come as a guest by one of the members. I’ve never heard so much delusional nonsense in one evening in my whole life. It was worse than listening to an Obama State of the Union address.
Jerome Corsi was the keynote speaker, but the other speakers were just crazy. As I recall, their President looked like an insane version of Bob Newhart. They claimed that “The Conspiracy” had been secretly running the whole world for hundreds of years, and that President Bush and Gov. Perry of Texas were secretly traitors, in service to The Conspiracy, conspiring with communists to merge the USA with Mexico & Canada. In fact, they claimed, the deal to do so had already been done.
The new common currency for all of North America, they claimed, was to be called the “Amero,” and their magazine ran a cover featuring the new combined flag.
The words “Bircher” and “reality” don’t belong in the same sentence together.
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Mark-Steyn-vs.-The-Hockey-Stick
A great conversation at Ricochet with Mark Steyn about this suit. Just posted earlier today I think. The participants seem to think it’s ridiculous that Mann would win, but the suit itself will stifle free speech, unfortunately. Regardless of who wins.
Correction to my 3:22 pm comment (currently in moderation):
“the other speakers were just crazy” should have been “the other speakers were just as crazy.”
Sorry about that!
Please do not confuse conservatism with the republican party, that’s a Limbaugh-like error. The republicans are as progressive as are the democrats, just in a different direction. Progressivism is the political bowel movement to make-things-better willy-nilly damn the unintended consequences, The Poverty of Historicism.
Doug Huffman, you must live in the Northeast, or on the Left Coast. Where I live, and to a lesser extent nationally, the GOP is the conservative Party.
Pat Frank,
Here is Mann’s “censored” file. No wonder he didn’t want it seen!
=========================
Martin says:
“…William F. Buckley, Jr. basically threw John Birch out of the modern conservative movement…”
John Birch was KIA in Korea, IIRC, so he could not have been ‘thrown out’ of any organization.
never trust bald men with beargs or goatees