Economics and similar, for the sleep-deprived
A subtle change has been made to the comments links, so they no longer pop up. Does this in any way help with the problem about comments not appearing on permalinked posts, readers?
Update: seemingly not
Update: Oh yeah!
Friday, January 09, 2009
A public service announcement for the attention of Professor Stephen Walt
I am a British citizen, and a reasonably representative member of the class of people among whom Prof. Walt would generally care to have a reputation. In respect of this blog post, I'd like to make it clear that so long as the inconvenience is not too great, I am prepared to testify in a British court to the effect that:
1) I have read the specific attacks on him published by Jonah Jeffrey Goldberg and Ross Douthat (establishing that they have been published in the UK) (corrected, thanks "political scientist" in comments)
and
2) that on reading those articles, I was disposed to think worse of Professor Walt, less likely to recommend his work to others, and in general his reputation with me had been harmed. My considered view is that Walt and his colleague Mearsheimer are not anti-Semites (I happen to disagree with their thesis but this is by the by), but every time I read one of these articles, even by an acknowledged halfwit twat like Goldberg, it does give me pause and make me wonder whether I'm missing some sort of poisonous nuance or other. (this would establish that Walt's reputation has been damaged by publication).
Between those two, Walt would have, AFAICS, decent grounds to bring a suit for libel in England; if he could convince a court that he had been called an anti-Semite, then the person accusing it would have to prove he was one in order to establish a defence of justification (or argue that it was fair comment). The American libel laws basically allow people like Goldberg and Douthat to throw around these very serious accusations at zero risk, but the British courts don't, and I think the British courts have it right in this case. This is not a general endorsement of UK libel law.
this item posted by the management 1/09/2009 01:44:00 PM
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