(HotAir h/t)
No harm in admitting the lie now that his NFL bid’s dead. First, via the Standard, comes this belated HuffPo postscript to a post that’s three years old:
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this post contained quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh, which Limbaugh has since denied making. As is our policy when a fact in a blog post is called into question, we gave its author 24 hours to substantiate the quote. Since he has not been able to do so, the quotes have been deleted from the post.
And now here’s Sanchez, kinda sorta apologizing — on Twitter — for airing the bogus slavery quote on his show earlier this week:
i’ve know rush. in person,i like him. his rhetoric,however is inexcusably divisive. he’s right tho. we didn’t confirm quote. our bad.
Proof that Limbaugh’s threat to sue people over this is being taken seriously? Eh, I doubt it. As I said before, it’s really hard for a public figure to prove defamation. He’d basically have to show that his accusers knew the quote was false and published it anyway; both HuffPo and Sanchez would reply that they didn’t know and were merely lazy, sloppy, negligent reporters in relying on published sources for a quote that they hadn’t fact-checked. The retractions, I suspect, are motivated less by fear of being sued than as a lame nod to journalistic ethics. “See, we correct our highly incendiary errors. …Eventually.”....
