Despite John Kerry’s claim that the “Swiftboat Veterans for Truth” had defamed him concerning his service in Vietnam, he has now allowed the last deadline for filing suit against the principals or their publisher pass without action, as William J. Dyer notes at BeldarBlog:
Sen. Kerry’s home state of Massachusetts has a very unusual, extremely generous and pro-plaintiff three-year limitations period for defamation claims. Massachusetts’ three-year statute of limitations for defamation claims made it the very last feasible venue in which Sen. Kerry conceivably could file suit and gain his public vindication, if the SwiftVets’ allegations about him were false. Those claims were certainly, indeed deliberately, injurious to his reputation; his damages arguably include the loss of the 2004 presidential election, however that might be valued in dollars and cents; and if John Kerry could hope to find a home-town advantage anywhere, surely it would be there. But now he’s let the incredibly generous Massachusetts statute of limitations run out, too.
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So let’s drop the snark and call a spade a spade: The very last thing John Kerry wants is to ever give the SwiftVets the legal tools they’d need to conclusively document their claims, because truth is, of course, a complete defense to defamation claims. Kerry doesn’t deserve vindication, and he knows he could never get it in court. In court, there would be compulsory discovery of witnesses and documents, followed by a fair and disciplined adversary process, followed by a definitive determination of the truth or falsity of the SwiftVets’ charges — a determination that he damn well knows would go against him. Instead, the haze of time and the near-universal bluster of his mainstream media allies (who continue to insist that the SwiftVets’ claims were “debunked” and that Kerry was victimized) has given him a far better result than he could ever get in court.
Read the whole thing at the link above. Dyer goes on to offer himself as defendant, since he has reproduced most of the “defamatory” claims on his blog, and will even pay Kerry’s filing fees, so long as all proceedings go directly on the public record.
Kerry will never accept this, of course, because the truth is his mortal enemy.
Thanks to Instapundit for pointing out this post.
