Glenn Beck Has A Novel Defense In A Defamation Lawsuit

According to Salon, Glenn Beck's got quite a defense against the guy suing him for defamation:
  

Glenn Beck's got a, um, novel response to a defamation
lawsuit against him.  

He made the guy he allegedly defamed famous, even though the guy didn't want to be famous. Therefore, the "famous" guy can't sue.

Confused yet? Well, it is a tortured defense, if you ask me.

Here's the deal:  This guy named Abdulrahman Alharbi was at the Boston Marathon when the terrorist bombs exploded in 2013.  He suffered relatively slight injuries, and of course was terrified.

Law enforcement interviewed him, like they did a lot of people, and decided he had nothing to do with the bombing.

According to the Boston Globe and the Washington Post, police could not have been more clear when responding to media inquires about Alharbi:  "He has been checked out," a law enforcement person said to the Boston Globe in the days after the attack. "He is not involved. He is just a victim."

Case closed, right?

Nope. Beck had other ideas.

Maybe because Alharbi has an Arabic sounding name, I don't know, Beck kept telling readers and listeners he would "expose" Alharbi and called him the "money man" for the terrorist conspiracy.

Alharbi sued for defamation, since he's obviously not a terrorist, though now in the eyes of many Beck fans, he is.

As Salon notes, Beck might have been wise to quietly settle out of court to make Alharbi and the controvery go away.

But Beck says his First Amendment rights are being violated by the lawsuit. Beck says Alharbi is a public figure, so the bar to sue is much higher.

And why is Alharbi a public figure? Because Beck says he acted suspiciously near the Marathon finish line that day, prompting federal investigators to question him.

Never mind that federal investigators questioned a LOT of people, so they could rule out suspects.

Beck says Alharbi is a public figure because he's been granting media interviews. And why has he been putting himself in the media limelight? So he could clear his name and make it obvious to the public he's not any kind of terrorist or danger to anybody.

So this is rich. Beck is the one who thrust Alharbi in the spotlight, and now that Beck shoved him into that spotlight, Alharbi can't' sue Beck for defamation?

Yes, Beck has the First Amendment right to spout almost any kind of garbage he wants. Unless it's untrue and defamatory.

Period.

Glenn Beck Gives Tutorial On How To Get Sued For Defamation

In the days after the Boston Marathon bombings a year ago, Glenn Beck kept telling us that it wasn't just the two Tsarnaev brothers that were involved, no sir!

A Saudi man is suing Glenn Beck for defamation
because Beck said the man had a major role in the
Boston Marathon bombing.
Except the guy didn't. Whoopsie.  

There's always a conspiracy to uncover, at least in Beck's mind, and he figured it out. There was a young man named Abdulrahman Alharbi, 20, a Saudi national, who was at the marathon that day.

Alherbi was injured in the attack. He was also a Saudi, as we said, and the FBI interviewed. I guess if you're Middle Eastern and near a bombing, you're automatically guilty.

Of course, the FBI and other authorities interviewed pretty much everybody who was near that explosion, so it's no surprise they talked with Alharbi.

But, authorities quickly concluded he had nothing to do with the terror attack, other than get injured by it.

But Beck is, or at least was, unconvinced. I guess if the authorities sometimes lie to us, that means they ALWAYS lie to us.

Beck had these things to say about Alharbi. And they are dark. And according to the Washington Post, and an explosion of media outlets today, Beck is the subject of a big defamation suit because Beck's provocative allegations are apparently completely untrue.

Here's what he had to say about Alherbi, in the days after the attack:

"We know who this Saudi national is....We know who this man is and, listen to me carefully, we know he s a very bad, bad, bad man."

He also said the U.S. "tagged" Alharbi as a "proven terrorist." Alharbi was also al Qaeda's "control agent and "money man" for the attacks, at least in Beck's, um, active mind, says the Washington Post

All this I'm sure was fun for Beck, who got to lecture to his rabid followers how smart he was to sniff this guy out, and how the government is covering things up because, oh, who KNOWS?!!?

Of course, all this bullcrap didn't exactly help Alharbi's life any. In his lawsuit, he says that a number of people, and I imagine many of them are Beck's most enthusiastic fans, calling him a child murderer, a terrorist.

I imagine Alharbi worries one of these lunatics might try to kill him.

Look, I'm all for people having the ability to express opinions about others, negative or otherwise. But really, there does need to be some limits. Did Beck know his allegations were false and just kept at it anyway, because it was good for ratings?

Or did he really believe this bullcrap, because he wanted to believe it? Maybe he has some sort of weird Messiah complex, I have no idea.

If you are going to make allegations that are going to wreck somebody's life, especially if you don't make it clear you're just speculating, that you're presenting fiction as fact, you need to be accountable.

So I'm glad Beck is getting sued. I hope Alharbi wins a pile of money.

Of course, if Alharbi does win, Beck will probably just say it's a vast conspiracy against him.

Whatever.