/2 The complaint is drafted and filed by Larry Klayman, omnipresent tinfoil connoisseur and legal-cryptid-hunter. Strike one. I mean please.
/3 Anyway, Moore is suing in United States District Court in DC for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, or as it is more commonly known. Butthurt In The First Degree.
/4 Note: the District of Columbia has a local anti-SLAPP statute, the application of which in federal court is a matter of some confusion and turmoil.
/5 Moore complains that Cohen and his crew tricked Moore and his wife to come to DC to be on "Yerushalayim TV," which does not technically exist on this plane, to celebrate Israel's 70th anniversary. Cohen posed as Erran Morad, former Mossad agent.
/6 Of course, this was all a gag for Cohen's new show "Who is America?" Moore complains that Cohen and the show "falsely painted, portrayed, mocked and with malice defamed Judge Moore as a sex offender, which he is not." OH COME ON
/7 By adding "mocked" to that sentence, Klayman is beclowing himself, which is quite a feat for someone who comes pre-beclowned. He's basically saying "the utterly obvious and inevitable defense to this is correct, and here I am confirming it."
/8 Only something that can reasonably be taken as a provable statement of fact can be defamatory. Mockery is by definition not defamatory -- like ridicule, insult, etc. When a public figure is at hand, it's also not, by definition, intentional infliction of emotional distress
/9 Don't believe me? Send to Hell and ask Jerry Falwell, who lost his defamation/Butthurt claim against Hustler for a mocking ad portraying him as losing his virginity to his mother in an outhouse.
/10 What, exactly, did Cohen say to call Moore a sex offender in the episode? It's not clear. Moore doesn't specify each and every allegedly defamatory or hurty statement. Remember: vagueness in defamation claims is the hallmark of meritless thuggery.
/11 But he does specify one thing: apparently the gag included Cohen showing off a high-tech Mossad-created molester-detector, which starts to beep immediately when held near Moore. That's actually a pretty funny routine. But it ain't defamatory.
/12 It's not defamatory because it's not a provable statement of fact that "this is a genuine high-tech molester detector that is identifying Moore as a molester." The entire gag is that the audience knows, and Moore doesn't, that it's all a set-up. That's the POINT.
/13 The entire thing is a satirical take on the accusations and rumors that surrounded Moore during his election, like a circle of eager middle school girls around their queen bee. It's a riff on that claim. It's not a provable statement of fact that Moore's a molester.
Yeah, I'm not so sure about that.
/14 This is a silly, contemptible lawsuit by one silly, contemptible lawyer on behalf of another silly, contemptible lawyer. It demonstrates disdain for the legal process. It is not to be taken seriously, and ought to result in a swift defeat. BETTER WRITERS NOW /end
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