Well, they say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel flees. But now, it seems, Richard Perle is trying 
a different approach. He’s suing Seymour Hersh for his article about him in The New Yorker.
He’s suing him … in Great Britain.
(As long as Perle is getting knocked around — unfairly, I think — for alleged dual loyalties, this doesn’t exactly seem like a step in the right direction. Does it? I suppose it may be some sort of clever loyalty triangulation strategy, but still … )
The UK of course has no 1st amendment. And British law makes it notoriously easy for plaintiffs to win libel suits.
As long as we’re on the subject, The New York Sun’s article announcing the suit leaves a bit to be desired. I like The Sun. I just bought a copy on the newsstand a couple days ago in New York to read on the train. And the article appropriately states at the bottom of the copy that Perle is a director of a company, Hollinger International Inc., which is an investor in The Sun.
But normally when there’s such a connection or conflict you bend over backwards to write a straight-up story and not weight it in your guy’s favor. But The Sun article quotes Perle, New Yorker editor David Remnick, and two of Perle’s foreign policy/neocon intellectual buddies, Stephen Bryen and Laurent Murawiec.
They of course both trash Hersh. (Bryen: “Itâs pretty outrageous for a leftwing columnist to make accusations like this with no factual basis. Most of the many hours he works each day are pro bono to help the administration with its policy on Iraq. He should get is a medal of honor.” Presumably, if Byron York were the writer, it wouldn’t be as bad?) Not exactly ‘fair and balanced,’ you might say. Murawiec, you’ll remember, is the former LaRouchie who Perle last year invited to give a powerpoint presentation at the Pentagon last year, which recommended seizing the Saudi oilfields and pursuing regime change in Egypt.
