BARBARIANS AT THE GATES

A few weeks ago I wrote about John Seigenthaler the Elder, who was apparently not, not, not involved in the Kennedy assassination(s). I never knew that anyone on the world thought that he might be implicated in killing JFK and RFK until he made a big stinking deal out of the fact that a Wikipedia entry about him said so.

Of course, as chronicled a few weeks ago, John Seigenthaler the Elder did not simply edit the Wikipedia page. He went to USAToday to complain about the entry most of us had probably never seen. He informed the three major groups that read USAToday (overseas U.S. sports fans, guests at hotels, and mouth breathers) that he was not, not, not involved with the Kennedy assassinations, and that he had been defamed by Wikipedia. Of course, group one does not read the op-ed page, group two only reads what they can finish on the hotel can, and group three doesn't know about the internet yet.

Anyhoo, Damned Lawyer just sent me a story from the New York Times (which he reads even though he lives in the tony suburbs of Chicago's North Shore (Communist)) reporting on a group called wikipediaclassaction.org. They are collecting complaints from people like Seigenthaler the Elder. Presumably they think there will be a class action lawsuit down the road. There will not be because defamation and similar claims are fact intensive, and not very effectively handled via class action. Asswipes.