Populuxe11.1
You do, I hope, understand that SBC is in character. Yes?Morrissey1.1.1
You need to look at the video of the Letterman show. He was telling the lie as Sacha Baron Cohen. That’s why he was found guilty of libel.McFliper1.1.1.1
really? “found guilty of libel”?
Normally these cases are settled with no judgement. Got any eviden- lol for a moment I forgot whom I was asking.- Sorry, you’re correct, McFliper. The slanderers settled out of court.
- Was there an admission of defamation in the settlement? Links please.Otherwise your “found guilty” line might have taken you well within the territory of defamation, yourself.
- Was there an admission of defamation in the settlement?I’m sure the lawyers made sure that no such admission was made. Maybe the hardline Israel shill Sacha Baron Cohen decided to part with a substantial sum of money simply as a humanitarian gesture to the Christian Palestinian peace activist group he so thoroughly derided and defamed. Or perhaps it was just another example of Baron Cohen’s brilliant “irony”.Links please.There you go…
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/david-letterman-sacha-baron-cohen-bruno-lawsuit–352162Note how the Hollywood Reporter tries to minimize and distort the issue, turning it into a joke by running an accompanying feature called “18 of Hollywood’s Outrageous Entertainment Lawsuits”—as if it was a case about entertainment, rather than libel.Otherwise your “found guilty” line might have taken you well within the territory of defamation, yourself.I’ve already conceded that he wasn’t found guilty, and pointed out his humanitarian donation to the peace activist.Now, will that be enough to stave off the lawyers?- Nope. At legal fees of hundreds or thousands of dollars an hour, settlements are often cheaper than successfully defending a suit.In case you don’t recall your assertions, this case was supposed to be evidence that SBC was a “hardline Israel shill”. Now you can’t even prove he actually defamed anyone. And if he was factually wrong, his producers and himself might have been misled into thinking the guy was a terrorist by locals eager to pick up a commission.You seem to have put a lot of structural load on that wee aluminium truss.
- Okay, he traveled to the Occupied Territories and accidentally told lies about a Christian peace activist. He’s a moral and serious person, and it was all done for a laugh.Have it your way.
- No, that’s equally dumb. But because SBC probably made a dickish move it doesn’t mean that he’s a tool of Mossad’s propaganda wing, does it?
- Oh, and didn’t he travel to Lebanon?
felixviper1.1.2
Nope, just as himself. Not that there’s anything notable about the interview, mind.- Not that there’s anything notable about the interview…Really?You don’t think there’s anything notable about someone humiliating and slandering a man for the sake of “entertainment”, and then slandering him further by repeating the lie on television?The courts obviously were a lot less indulgent than you are.
- Where’s the humiliation and slander? Are we watching the same video?
- You are either drunk or stupid.
- Why don’t you just explain what you mean instead of expecting us to read your mind?All I saw was Cohen being interviewed about his movie. Tell me what I’m missing, if you can find the time.
- Morrissey seems to think that calling the dude a terrorist was untrue (seems to be the case). If so it was defamation, fair enough. But the quantum leap seems to be that because the person who was apparently defamed was from the Levant, this means that SBC is a Zionist propagandist of the worst order.And that’s assuming it wasn’t simply a frivolous lawsuit settled because it was the most cost-effective method of resolution.
- Ah. And here’s me thinking he’s a particularly clever master of disguise when all along he was just a reptilian shape-shifter.Cheated.
- But the quantum leap seems to be that because the person who was apparently defamed was from the Levant, this means that SBC is a Zionist propagandist of the worst order.There is no “quantum leap” involved. The facts speak for themselves. In his zeal to deride, ridicule and demean the people in the Occupied Territories (not the gun-toting, violent illegal “settlers”, but the indigenous Arabs) Baron Cohen set up an interview with a Christian peace activist in Hebron and then pretended he had bravely interviewed a Muslim terrorist. I think that libeling a Christian peace activist like that is indeed propaganda of the worst sort.…assuming it wasn’t simply a frivolous lawsuit…I wonder if a malicious ideologue said that YOU were a terrorist and placed your life in peril like that, whether you would appreciate people laughingly speaking of your predicament as “frivolous”.
- Assuming that I:
a) wasn’t a terrorist; or
b) had not misled the producers into thinking I was a terrorist so I got money;
then yes, the my lawsuit would be valid.and if:
c) someone else had told the producers that I was a terrorist so they got a commissionthen my lawsuit would be merely due to the fact that the producers hadn’t checked their informants’ bona fides.But you have done nothing to say that b and c were false, even if I grant you that a is false. Which it almost certainly is, because terrorists aren’t known for suing for defamation.And yeah, it’s a quantum leap to assume that one person’s being possiblydefamed is indicative that SBC is a rabid Zionist propagandist.
- Why don’t you just explain what you mean instead of expecting us to read your mind?What? I’ve not only explained it exhaustively, I’ve posted a transcript* and the television clip itself.All I saw was Cohen being interviewed about his movie. Tell me what I’m missing, if you can find the time.I’m happy to go through it for you, and I assume you’re genuine.You need to read the transcript. You’ll see that Sasha Baron Cohen—not pretending to be Bruno, but speaking as Sasha Baron Cohen—uses the word “terrorist” four times, and the term “suicide bombers”. He leads Letterman and the audience to believe that Abu Aita, a Christian peace activist, is a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and then shows a clip of himself as Bruno abusively interviewing Abu Aita, joking about “your king Osama” to the bewildered Palestinian.There were real and serious repercussions for Abu Aita after this; not only was he libeled in front of the world, but he was suspected by the locals in the Occupied Territories of deliberately and knowingly participating in the unfunny charade.You really should watch it, and read the transcript I provided. Then you’ll see why Sasha Baron Cohen handed over a huge amount of money to people he would otherwise see exterminated.* Okay, okay, Te Reo, it segues (appropriately) into a Nazi rally at the end, but everything up to that is genuine.
- Morrissey, what was so hard about explaining that? None of that information was in the video, the transcript, or your comments until this one.Not a fucking mind reader mate.
- Morrissey, what was so hard about explaining that? None of that information was in the video, the transcript, or your comments until this one.Not a fucking mind reader mate.I hope it was of some help.I’m sorry about calling you “drunk or stupid”; you know I didn’t mean it.
- No worries, I’ve been called worse and often deserved it
Merry Christmas.
- Oh, and didn’t he travel to Lebanon?He met Abu Aita and filmed his humiliation in Hebron, in the Occupied West Bank.Your other fantasy, about the cunning Arab criminal masterminds duping the gullible English and Americans into thinking they were terrorists is beyond idiotic.
- fair enough. I thought he said Beirut in the letterman clip, but what the hey.
- And a merry Christmas to you and yours, McFliper.
SACHA BARON COHEN: Yeah, I interviewed a terrorist.
LETTERMAN: How’d you do that? It can’t be EASY to find a terrorist!
BARON COHEN: Well it’s not easy to get in touch with a terrorist. Your government has been trying to find one for the past nine years! [turns and mugs to audience, repeatedly raising eyebrows Groucho Marx-style]
AUDIENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
LETTERMAN: Ha ha ha ha ha! You’re right!
AUDIENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
BARON COHEN: To get in touch with the terrorist, I used a CIA contact.
LEITERMANN: [spluttering with laughter] Bruno has a CIA contact!?!?!?
AUDIENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
BARON COHEN: Yes. These were really nasty terrorists, from the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, the world’s leading suicide bombers.
AUDIENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
LEITERMANN: Ha ha ha ha ha! Okay, now, what’s this clip we’re going to see from the movie?
BARON COHEN: Here’s where I talk to the terrorist, and insult him, and he hasn’t got a CLUE what I was saying!
AUDIENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
AUDIENCE: Heil! Heil! Heil!…..
PAUL SHAFFER: [sotto voce] Somebody get a can of deodorant….
Get into the spirit and dutifully laugh along with Letterman and his Pavlovian audience…