SMRs and AMRs

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Norm Coleman Sues Al Franken For Defamation

Sam Stein
HuffPost

Sen. Norm Coleman announced on Thursday that he was filing a lawsuit against his Democratic opponent Al Franken and the Franken campaign over what he deemed defamation of character.

If the move seems dramatic, it shouldn't. This is now the fourth time that the Minnesota Republican has filed a suit late in the course of his runs for office.

During the gubernatorial race in 1998, Coleman filed and later dropped a complaint against his Democratic rival Hubert Humphrey III over an issue of unfair campaign practices. In 2002, the state's Republican party (operating, ostensibly, on Coleman's behalf), filed a complaint against then Senator Paul Wellstone, accusing him of inciting "union thugs" to rough up a GOP cameraman. And, again in 2002, the Coleman campaign filed a separate suit against Wellstone for distorting his stance on social security.

Aides to Coleman, speaking Thursday morning at a hastily organized press conference, seemed far more interested in generating political theatrics than they did in explaining a serious legal quibble.

(More here.)

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home