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The Velveteen Ocelot

(115,597 posts)
10. This time I disagree with Papantonio.
Fri Mar 2, 2012, 07:08 PM
Mar 2012

Sometimes people can wiggle out of a defamation case by claiming that they were merely stating an opinion, and Limbaugh would probably claim he was speaking in hyperbole to make a point and he never intended to claim that Fluke is, in fact, a slut or a prostitute. But if you go back and listen to everything he has said about her over the past three days, it goes way beyond an opinion statement. He flat-out said she was a "slut" or a "prostitute" because she said was "having so much sex" that she couldn't afford birth control pills. Not only did he call her a slut, in the complete absence of evidence that she is a prostitute (the imputation of unchastity to a woman, a classic example of slander per se), but he falsely stated that she said she was having so much sex she couldn't afford birth control. Now he's claiming he was just being deliberately absurd. But he was clearly trying to discredit this woman and deter her from speaking out by calling her names and making false statements about her. Classic defamation. I think she wins.

The courts have held many times that the First Amendment does not protect defamatory speech.

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