Joe Klein: Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are guilty of borderline sedition

Joe Klein said that Sarah’s and Glenn’s words “come close” to sedition. To me, people watching that show (why they’d want to – who knows) not steeped in the law would take that as a direct accusation of criminal activity. Sedition is indeed a federal crime.

Title 18, Section 2385 of the U.S. Code provides, in pertinent part:

§ 2385. Advocating overthrow of Government

Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or
Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or
Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

[emphasis added].

For Joe Klein to say someone “comes close” to committing a federal crime under this statute, where he has NO proof of statutory elements of the offense (i.e., urging force or violence), should be regarded as a serious case for slander, even considering that Sarah and Glenn are public figures, and that therefore there would have to be a requirement of proof of malice to sustain such a slander claim. I am no expert in defamation law, but this looks like as good a case as any that I have seen involving a public figure. His waving around that napkin as the sum total of his “research” shows a reckless disregard for the truth, IMHO. I would love to see his name as a defendant in a civil lawsuit arising from this.

At the very least, Klein should be blasted 6 ways from Sunday (verbally of course) by every conservative appearing on any talk show from now on until he apologizes (if ever).

OneVision on April 19, 2010 at 8:04 PM