When last we heard from Michael Mann, his chest-thumping lawyer was bellowing, "I don't bluff." As Jonathan Adler writes today at the Volokh Conspiracy lawyers' blog:
I think the folks at NR just called it.
Indeed. You can get the general line of NR's response to Dr Mann from the headline:
Get Lost.
Watts Up With That calls it "the best Michael Mann headline evah". But read the rest of Rich Lowry's reply, too - especially the bits related to discovery, or, as Aussie Climate Madness calls it, "Mann's risky path". Red State also weighs in, and a sharp post by Powerline's Steven Hayward concludes:
By the way, hasn't Mann heard of the track record of people who haul Mark Steyn into court? It isn't pretty.
Actually, I'll bet Michael Mann had never heard of me when he blew his gasket, and I'll wager his high-priced counsel never bothered doing two minutes of Googling. If they had, they'd have known that once they start this thing they'd better be prepared to go the distance.
For my part, although I've been dismissive of Mann's "hockey stick" for over a decade, I'd never paid much attention to him personally. All I'd say is he seems strangely insecure for a person of such eminence. I wonder what he'll be like on the witness stand. And I'll be interested to see whether his page links to NR's lawyer's letter the way my page linked to his lawyer's.
Hockey sticks akimbo, baby!
By the way, if you've ever thought of donating to National Review, or better yet subscribing, there's never been a better time.
In a related development, a big pile of documents were very belatedly released yesterday under the Freedom of Information Act. Among them, an email from one of Dr Mann's fellow scientists complaining about being "hit on the head with a hockey stick".
(For previous posts, see here. Original lawsuit-provoking defamatory slanderous libel here.)
[UPDATE: More on what Climate Depot calls Bluffgate from The Other McCain]
