Or at least she cannot sue a rival campaign if it makes such a claim.
The Washington State Supreme Court has found that politicians have a constitutional right to lie.
(It is still illegal to libel, but libel is defined extremely narrowly in the US. It is not enough to make a false statement of fact, it is not even enough if this is done with malice. It must, in addition, cause harm to the reputation of the victim.)
3 comments
Comments feed for this article
October 9, 2007 at 1:40 am
Anonymous
Admit it: You just want your words used in an ad, too.
October 9, 2007 at 2:33 pm
GASARCH
Actually this is a good
ruling- If lying is illegal
then that is a path
towards censorship.
What is a lie? Steven
Colbert says things that
are clearly satirical, but
false (though they have
a certain… truthiness
to them). Other cases are
less clear and this could
be waste alot of time and
energy to prosecute.
The recent votes in the
House and Senate to
condemn Moveon.org and
Rush Limbaugh are scary
enough.
Being a first-amendment
absolutist is a coherent
and consistent viewpoint
which is simple and easy
to explain. Anything else
gets very murky very
fast.
December 13, 2008 at 10:51 am
Smodpnru
Thanks!,