Cartoonist Ted Rall may sue Ann Coulter for defamation

One of our favorite cartoonists and columnists, Ted Rall, is considering suing right-wing cheerleader Ann Coulter for saying this about him at a conference in Washington, D.C. last Friday: "Iran is soliciting cartoons on the Holocaust. So far, only Ted Rall, Garry Trudeau, and The New York Times have made submissions."

Funny, huh? All this time we've been under the impression that Coulter was a political tool--er, columnist--and it turns out she's really a comedienne.

Rall admitted he could lose a lawsuit if he files one, but he doesn't think a "just funnin'" defense by Coulter would be the reason. "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.

In an e-mail he sent to editorandpublisher.com, Rall said, "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."

Coulter has been lying and getting away with it for a long time (see David Brock's excellent book, "Blinded by the Right"). We hope Rall can scrape together the money, time, and energy to finally hold her accountable.

To pledge your moral or financial support of Rall's effort (it'll cost $6,000 just to file a suit), e-mail him at chet@rall.com.

(Thanks to Eric Dickey for the scoop.)

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001995932