Ted Rall Says He Might Sue Ann Coulter for Holocaust Cartoon Remark
Ted Rall is asking readers of his popular blog to help fund a potential lawsuit against conservative commentator Ann Coulter.
By Dave Astor
Published: February 13, 2006 1:11 PM ET
NEW YORK Columnist Ann Coulter made a provocative remark Friday about "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau and editorial cartoonist Ted Rall. Trudeau is shrugging it off, but Rall is considering a lawsuit.
Coulter reportedly said Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.: "Iran is soliciting cartoons on the Holocaust. So far, only Ted Rall, Garry Trudeau, and The New York Times have made submissions."
Giving her remark another twist is the fact that the conservative Coulter has the same distributor -- Universal Press Syndicate -- as the liberal Rall and Trudeau.
When asked Monday if he wanted to respond to Coulter's comment, Trudeau told E&P via e-mail: "Nah."
Rall announced on his blog that he would look into taking legal action against Coulter if readers of his blog wanted him to -- and if they pledged the $6,000 needed to draft and file a lawsuit in New York.
"If enough 'yes' votes come in with enough serious pledges, I'll see Ann in court," wrote Rall. "If not, well, chalk up another victory for the Right."
Rall said people were voting roughly 3-1 in favor of suing. And he told E&P Monday that pledges are coming in fast. "If pledges continue to come in at the present rate, I'll have the $6,000 available by tonight," Rall said. "A lot of people are fed up with how Coulter has turned slandering liberals into a cottage industry and want to see her held to account. I'm actually fairly overwhelmed by the response -- more than 300 pledges, many in the $20 to $100 range."
He added: "I'm getting so many e-mail pledges with the same subject line -- 'Sue Coulter' -- that I'm beginning to think her first name is Sue!"
The "no" votes, according to Rall, are "mostly from people who worry that what she said is protected free expression."
His next step? "I have a call into my lawyer and like anyone with an ounce of sense will follow his advice," Rall told E&P. "If he thinks there's a solid case, I'll ask the pledgers to PayPal the money and move to file. If not, I'll have to let it go. I'm not sure whether this would be a libel or defamation suit; libel usually applies to writing and defamation to speech, but this speech has been reproduced in writing."
Rall said there's obviously a chance he could lose a lawsuit if it was filed. But the cartoonist doesn't think a "just funnin'" defense by Coulter would be the reason for such a loss. "I doubt her claims of 'humor' or sarcasm will fly with a jury since she's not funny and her audiences take her literally and she knows it," he wrote on his blog.
The cartoonist concluded, in a comment e-mailed to E&P: "It's one thing to mock people for their opinions and quite another to make opinions up out of whole cloth and stuff them into a person's mouth. That's what Coulter has done here. She has absolutely no reason to believe that I am sympathetic to the Iranian government, a Holocaust revisionist or denier, or anti-Semitic. She has no reason to believe that I am less patriotic than any other American. Opposing the Bush administration does not make you anti-Semitic, pro-Iran, or anti-American, and no one has the right to equate them as she did before a large high-profile audience that included Dick Cheney. She has the right to attack me for what I say, do, and believe -- not to lie."
The New York Times was also asked Monday to respond to Coulter's comment, but a spokesperson has yet to get back to E&P. |
