He's talking about accepted practice by those claiming to be part of a profession, not legislative action.

Big difference.

Newsweek sat on the Clinton-Lewinsky story, for instance, and therefore got scooped by Drudge. So Frum's talking about the Newsweeks of the world, not the tabloids.

David Frum is fool's fool. Nothing he says has any value.

He clearly said "rules". He knows rules means enforceable rules...unless Hans is right.

Slander is slander and Libel is libel. If someone prints something they cannot prove or justify, they run the risk of being sued and having to pay for Palin's reimbursement of her family's clothing purchases..

But isn't truth the defense to a charge of libel?

When you say rules in this context, you mean "rules of the game", not laws. Customs, in other words.

If he meant that we needed to outlaw anonymous source reporting, he'd have said so. And that would be insane.

He was not talking politeness, he said there should be something done about anonymous source reporting. Let's see if we can find a clip.

Not posted yet but past Frum interviews have been so we can only wait.

If he said we should outlaw anonymous source reporting, then he's gone off the deep end.

If not, not.

We will see how good my post-caffeinated recollection of the pre-caffeinated world is.

But yes, the bright line that we must not cross in a free country is that truth must be a defense to any claim by the State against speech.

The state then is no different than any other libel chill.

Truth is a defence in a case of libel certainly. A complaint against anonymous sources is usually a desire to see who is spilling the beans rather than a claim against the claim so to speak.

To use the press anonymously to call someone stupid, especially when that someone has just *lost* a national election is pretty underhanded and cowardly. Anonymous sources have their place but in this context both the sources and the "journalists" should be ashamed.

We all know now that Sarah Palin isn't exactly the brightest of northern lights; you can tell that by listening to her speak. If McCain's people, or whoever, want to call her stupid in public then they should have the fortitude to put their names to their comments.

Outlawing unsourced comments would be "insane" as Ben says. Expecting people who claim to be members of a profession to hold some professional standards is not.

Here is the video from CBS.

More here.

BTW, the "Africa is a Country" thing was a hoax.

<i>
On Monday the answer popped up on a blog and popped out of the mouth of David Shuster, an MSNBC anchor. “Turns out it was Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who has come forward today to identify himself as the source of the leaks,” Mr. Shuster said.

Trouble is, Martin Eisenstadt doesn’t exist. His blog does, but it’s a put-on. The think tank where he is a senior fellow — the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy — is just a Web site. The TV clips of him on YouTube are fakes.
</i>

Is he made of plasticine? Do the YouTube clips look like that clay-mation shows like David and Goliath?