ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE

Almost, But Not Quite

by Bob Walsh

Congressman Devin Nunes is a good solid conservative. He announced yesterday that he is suing CNN and The Daily Beast for defamation. It seems they printed a load of bullshit stating he had a bunch of inappropriate meetings with Ukrainians.

As a public figure it is difficult for an elected official to sue for defamation successfully. But not impossible. He has to demonstrate that the material was wrong, that they KNEW it was wrong and went ahead and published it anyway with malicious intent to damage him.

It is a very high bar. You need time, resources and a thick skin to prevail. You also need to be right.

The bad guys do this sort of thing fairly often. Remember Harry Reid and his assertion that "somebody told him" that Mitt Romney had paid no income taxes for years. It was complete bullshit and Reid apparently KNEW it was complete bullshit but he put it out there anyway and it did to some extent throw Romney off his game. He finally came up with his tax returns to show it was false. By then it didn't matter much.

Assuming Nunes' assertions are correct and he is willing to put up with the crap he may very well prevail. I hope he takes it to the wall. There should be some standards. There mostly aren't any more. Maybe we can get a little of that back.