Yesterday, Patterico wrote on his blog, “I am having this strong premonition that [David] Shuster’s half-assed ‘apology’ [on Twitter] is not going to save him from a lawsuit. Given his total distortion of the facts regarding O’Keefe, it shouldn’t. Again, time will tell.”
We didn’t have to wait very long — Christian Hartsock at Big Journalism writes today:
Conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe filed suit for defamation this morning against Al Gore’s CurrentTV, as well as “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann and guest host David Shuster, for falsely referring to O’Keefe as a “convicted felon” and falsely reporting that O’Keefe had been accused of rape.
O’Keefe has not been charged with a felony, much less convicted of a felony, and he has not been accused of any inappropriate sexual or even physical contact. Both facts are a matter of public court record, and therefore the statements by Current TV, Olbermann and Shuster likely amount to defamation with actual malice.
According to the complaint (after the jump):
Regarding Shuster’s “apology” on Twitter, Ace adds:
We’ll see if he corrects on Olbermann’s show, where he’s guest hosting, and where he made his libelous remark.
Shuster, of course, has been claiming this for years. No matter how many times people informed him he was factually inaccurate, he kept on claiming it.
Because he’s not a journalist, and realizes his reputation is too stinky to ever work in that field again. He’s now just a rabble-rouser in a suit.
The Leftist Media
We’ll report the truth. If under court order.
Naturally, Dave Weigel of the Washington Post-owned Slate calls the story “James O’Keefe, Libel Hunter.”
Because Al and Dave and Keith are victims here.
Related: “By following the narrative, it’s easy to deduce that while Shuster, Olbermann, and the rest of Al Gore’s network are no fans of James O’Keefe, they have their sights set on a bigger target: Andrew Breitbart.”
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