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AmChron Truncates Personal Attacks To Elude Libel Suit

Written by Ed Sumcad

by Ed Sumcad

Blasting our authorities, our free society and our established institutions ....

.... to kingdom come is in no small measure the very soul of the enemy’s jihad, and this brazen attack is doing a great service to their cause. It is not freedom of expression but abuse of freedom when it is exercised against the public good. When an online publication acts as accomplice in committing libel, citizens have a duty to see to it that this abuse of “free speech” is brought to public attention so that action can be taken. The court of law grants legal remedy to victims of this abuse. edwin a. sumcad/02/21/08 [NWS Feb 21/08]

It was a smart move. The damage was done but scurrilous false statements of articles published were truncated to avoid not just being sued for libel but to escape the censoring action of government authorities that oversee online publications abusing the freedom of expression and injuring targets of outrageous personal attacks.

     American Chronicle online publication network that leans to the left published defamatory articles written by a left-leaning radical Liberal writer against the person of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. The attack was neither accidental nor perfunctory – it was willful and malicious calculated to project an uncontrollable urge to air a consuming personal hatred against duly elected authorities, described in courts that are trying libel cases, as no less "squalid, obscene and defamatory".

     As I gingerly point this out in the subsequent paragraphs of this editorial report, there is no doubt that the attack was personal …a spiteful and malevolent abuse of free speech not by an elected government which we normally expect as the culprit, but strangely from members of the Fourth Estate itself that ironically the Constitution is sworn to protect.

     There was no doubt that I am one of the citizens of this country who were revolted by such barefaced and diabolic attack on this nation’s topmost persons of authority. But many of us will look at it in a distance from the wrong end of the telescope and see a political red color in it. The sad thing is that there is nothing Democrat or Republican in it.

      I am not politically defending Bush or Cheney. I am sure they can ably defend their person from vicious personal attacks. Besides it is their own business to do so. But it is rather the duty of every citizen to defend the highest constitutional offices of the land we in a free election had chosen for them to hold and behold, and for defending the freedom of the press from wanton and flagrant abuse. Blasting our authorities, our free society and our established institutions to kingdom come is in no small measure the very soul of the enemy’s jihad, and this brazen attack is doing a great service to their cause.

     The other point of my concern is simply this: We are all critics of our public officials but if an online publication goes out of bound and becomes a rabid political accomplice in committing libel, we have an inescapable obligation as citizens of this country to see to it that this abuse of “free speech” should be brought to public knowledge and halted accordingly. I sent an e-mail to American Chronicle to remove those defamatory statements against Bush and Cheney or else face the consequences.

        On July 5, 2007, an article written by Timothy Sexton appeared in American Chronicle – “Independence Day 2007: When the President Urinated on the Constitution and the Declaration”. [underscored] I call the public’s attention to this article and see how daring even the title is, for AC to publish a culpable smear thereby defying the possibility of a libel suit, considering that aside from the squalid title of the article, as this word is used by the court, certain specific contents of the written piece stated even an “obscene and defamatory" personal attack.

       The 4th paragraph of this article described Dick Cheney as a fat slug [you may visit this hyperlink by clicking on it]. It reads as follows: “Dick Cheney was still a young man during those days, though well on his way to being the fat slug he is now.” [underscored] It is indubitably an attack on Cheney’s private person describing him as a fat slug, not on his public person or official capacity.

       The libelous meaning of a fat slug used here is that it is “an offensive term that deliberately insults somebody’s level of energy or activity; a mollusk without shell; it resembles a snail but has no shell.”

       On July 3, 2007, American Chronicle even published a more vicious personal attack on Bush. The title of the article was “Americans Must Act Now to Forcibly Remove Pres. Bush From Office” written by the same writer. The last paragraph of this article stated as follows [underscored]: “Right now, there is no one who can save America but Americans. The time for action is at hand. To delay any longer is to put every one of us at risk for whatever new delusions are swimming around inside Bush’s syphilis-ravaged brain.” [Hyperlink] The printing of this personal attack exhibits the height of publication irresponsibility because it is not only very damaging but it is also blatantly false.

      On July 19, 2007, I wrote American Chronicle telling the editors who were accomplices to the commission of this libel, and I quote: “This one I will recommend to proper authorities for the filing of libel in court if not removed immediately.”

     There was no question that these derogatory articles subjected the person of Bush and Cheney to public condemnation and ridicule. To repeat what I said: It was an attack on their person, not on their public responsibility to which they were elected for, or an attack on the way they handle that responsibility as public servants.

     As stated earlier, it was that kind of libel rising from personal attacks which the court described as so "squalid, obscene and defamatory".

    To comprehend well the legal core of this editorial insight, it is important to understand that the attacks injured not only Bush and Cheney both in their personal capacity and as public officials by those false defamatory statements published, but also damaged their families, the respect of their children that idolized them, their relatives and personal friends that love and admire them, not to speak of millions of Americans that think highly of them, work for them and support them. [underscored]

      Do you know how serious was the damage created by this defamation that cannot be repaired? What were published were not true as libel is always a false accusation in public, but Mrs. Bush and their children will be shocked to death to learn that people had started to think that her husband and their father has a syphilis and his brain is damaged by the disease.

     Subjected to shame, public condemnation and ridicule, the victims’ private persons and personal relationship with those close to them, were wrecked and even if restored, would never be the same again.

      Note at this point that the extent of the damage is incomprehensible, its monstrosity is not within the reach of reason, and the gravity of the damage sustained was beyond monetary estimation. It has been said that the reputation of a person is larger than life itself.

      If you click on the above-stated links which open these articles, the libelous lines in the above underscored paragraphs to which I called the reader’s attention [supra], have been removed – “truncated” was the term I used -- after I served a warning on July 19, 2007 of what this online publication, under a new highly politicized left-leaning editorial management would most likely face. The reading public could no longer see the legal onus of libel that I have demanded AC to remove or else face the consequences.

     Unfortunately, the political editors of AC let these attack articles run for months before they finally removed the specific libelous false words published that damaged the person of the injured victims, only lately. The removal has become moot and academic. The intention to injure the persons and damage their reputation had already been done.

     But here is the “reward” for exercising this public duty that the public needs to know. Whistleblowers for public good suffer retribution; exposed wrongdoers normally strike back and punish them if they could. I will state only the facts of repercussions that followed. For the public to learn what to expect when one performs a public duty as herein described is, to me, a gem by the fireplace. I published a warning from which writers of good standing and the general public could learn a lesson from. Media are gagging authors … watchout! Click on this link to read it.

      As an act of retribution, AC removed all my articles – about close to a hundred or so – from the websites of American Chronicle and its affiliates in the Internet. In addition, AC published my picture in the vacant spaces where my articles were deleted, with a derogatory ad that attempted to damage the reputation of this award-winning journalist. But this too was removed after I – a lawyer-journalist that AC is attempting to injure -- reminded AC’s owner to let go this retributive meanness or face the consequence. AC complied.

     The deletion was made not because it violated AC’s editorial policy – the new set of politicized left-leaning editors do not just allow but also encourage the publication of smear materials so long as these are written by radical writers [as the above-cited Sexton articles exhibited] – it was removed to escape a libel suit and possible action of proper authorities.

© Copyright Edwin A. Sumcad. Access NWS February 21, 2008

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