Gerald Posner Hires Mark Lane To Write Odd Demand Letter.

As the New Times reports, Gerald Posner has hired Rush to Judgment author Mark Lane to write a slightly oddball letter regarding allegations of plagiarism that have been lodged against the famous author.

Aside from the gimmicky (self-promoting?) JFK connection, here's the key graf on the possible legal claims:

"Most egregious was the email letter dated May 5, 2010, from Tim Elfrink, your staff writer for Miami New Times to Mr. Posner's publisher, Random House, making exaggerated charges of plagiarism and seeking to know what the publisher was going to do about it. That letter and other actions constitute tortious interference with a business relationship, tortious interference with a contractual relationship, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress. A leading relevant case, Gerber v Keyes, was decided by a Florida appellate court and New York State ruled in a similar fashion in Wegman v Dairylea Cooperative, Inc."

"Mr. Posner is prepared to file a complaint and seek immediate discovery as to the basis and support for the campaign to destroy his opportunity to work in his profession," Lane's letter said.

Ok, no libel or slander claims, just a tough tortious interference allegation that will be very hard to prove (putting aside the question of damages).

Ironically, Posner will have to establish something close to bad intent for those claims to stick, even as his principle defense against charges of plagiarism has been the lack of that very intent.

Some media wags have focused (mockingly) on the final graf by the authors:

"I do have one further suggestion. Since the issue of the search for the truth may be of interest to you and since, as you must know, a committee of the United States Senate years ago and then again more recently, concluded that the CIA, the FBI and other intelligence agencies have assets pretending to be journalists embedded in the major news media, that might be a subject that could attract your attention.

Come on, folks, let's not exaggerate -- Judith Miller did not technically work for the CIA.

Did she?

(BTW, our own Bill Cooke took that rockin' photo!)

Gerald Posner Suspended For Plagiarism!

Miami Beach's own Gerald Posner, who recently was the talk of the town with his salacious book Miami Babylon, has been suspended by The Daily Beast for lifting passages from prior articles, including the Herald:

On Friday, it looked like writer Gerald Posner had his minor plagiarism scandal under control. Slate's Jack Shafer busted him for one case of copying, but Posner claimed it was accidental and his editors said he would keep working. Now Shafer has three more examples of Posner stealing from the Herald, plus one involving Texas Lawyer, and Posner writes he's been suspended. He blogged: "I now realize that a method of compiling information that I have used successfully since 1984... obviously does not work... at the warp speed of the Net." Or under the bright light of Google.

Posner's blog is here.

What does that mean for us?

More Meghan McCain.

It's Here, It's Here, It's Finally Here!!!

Hoo boy I feel like a kid who opened up his Hanukkah present two months early and -- instead of some slacks and a nice belt -- found a bottle of Malaccan gin and Bo Derek holding two glasses and wearing nothing but a smile and some windsurfing gear.

Wow that got a little weird, I better start again.

Blogger extraordinaire Random Pixels (who is a pretty darn good photographer too) was at the Gerald Posner book reading the other night and came across a furry, bespectacled curmudgeon wearing what looks like a umpire outfit stolen from a local South American soccer league.

It turned out to be human, and -- to my unceasing delight and amazement -- Glenn Garvin.

You can tell Bill is an excellent photographer because he actually manages to make his subject look sympathetic and personable, which evidently disproves that old adage about polishing very small objects.

Nice work!