If you're looking for an overview of Dr Michael Mann's suit against National Review over my Corner post, The Columbia Journalism Review's Curtis Brainard does a crackerjack job interviewing spokesmen for one side of the story.Sadly, Dr Mann was too busy playing "hide the delete"* to comment himself, but his Big Oil lawyer did offer this:
"This is not a bluff," Williams said when asked about Simberg's comment. "This is a very strong case. I've done a fair amount of libel and defamation work. I vet the cases pretty thoroughly before I take them, and I don't bluff. We're going to bring it unless they retract and apologize."
The CJR's Brainard, like the Big Oil lawyer, bandies the term "academic fraud" as if it's a concept distinct from non-academic fraud. Fraud-wise, my post used no qualifying adjective:
Michael Mann was the man behind the fraudulent climate-change "hockey-stick" graph, the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus.
I'm heartened to hear Mr Williams doesn't bluff, and look forward to being cross-examined by him in court.
*PS Speaking of Michael Mann's "hide the delete", Nathan Steinke writes:
When he called out the "intellectual bankruptcy" of those who disagree with him, I asked what his 24/7 delete-fest said about the intellectual richness of his opinion. If his brilliant, intellectual, academic truths can't stand up to a little scrutiny from laymen on the Internet, what does that say about the confidence he has in the story he's peddling?
In an expected move proving Mann has no understanding of irony, that comment was promptly deleted. And then Mann's buddies pat themselves on the back while musing about why none of us "trolls" can come up with something reasonable and intelligent to rebut them. Well, that would be because anything and everything that isn't full-blown, unabashed, brown-nosing Mann-love is deleted.
He's got some kind of creepy megalomaniacal complex that demands attention and praise. One of the oddest sights on his Facebook pages is to read "debates" that were clearly between two or more people that have been censored until only one Mann disciple is left looking like he's talking to himself. The other side has been deleted. Not rebutted, not answered, but deleted.
Don't worry. When it comes to court, Dr Mann will simply delete the defense case.
