Libel and Opinion

"If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen." -- Harry Truman

Yours is only an opinion; mine is a true fact, said the politician.

False facts are of no use to anyone. -- Pug Mahoney

   Libel and opinion are not always the same thing. An opinion may defame someone and therefore be libelous, but not all opinions are libelous.
   For example, a theater critic may write that a performance was dull and boring, but that remains one person's opinion and is not libelous even though others may believe the performance was magnificent.
   Similarly, to say that a politician is arrogant, ignorant and incompetent starts as an opinion, but it may also be true, and therefore fails the libel test on both counts.
   And to write that a politician is a liar and a hypocrite may start life as an opinion but can bring accusations of libel. This leads to the point that the best defense against libel is that whatever was said or written was true, provably true, and done without malice and with reckless disregard for whether true or not.
   Moreover, the standards of libel differ for people in the public eye who engage in strenuous, open debate.
   So just as singers, actors, performers and politicians open themselves to strong criticism of what they say and do, this is not libelous, not matter how much the performer or politician doesn't like it.
   Suing an editor for writing that a politician is an arrogant, ignorant, incompetent liar and hypocrite is pointless for two reasons:
   First, it's known as fair comment of a person in the public eye, and second, it may well be true that the subject of the criticism really is an arrogant, ignorant, incompetent liar and hypocrite, which can be proven by citing the politician's public record of what he has said and done.