Sheldon Adelson is one tough Jew.
He basically made it possible for Newt Gingrich to get as far in the primaries as he did by bankrolling the Speaker to the tune of $10 million, before promptly switching his allegiance and his ample resources to Mitt Romney when the presidential nomination was decided in Romney’s favor.
Democrats, especially Jews, were upset by Adelson’s outspoken support for the GOP and scared of his resources and they knew there was no way Adelson would stop funding Republicans, so they decided to roll the dice on scaring Romney away from Adelson and his billions.
The National Jewish Democratic Council posted an item on their blog alleging that Adelson approved of prostitution at one of his overseas casinos.
Now, Adelson is fighting back by suing the NJDC for libel. His $10 million suit claims that NJDC, its president David Harris, and its chairman Marc Stanley, “crossed the threshold from constitutionally protected speech to defamation of a public figure” by publishing what Adelson says are false claims about his Macau operations.
NJDC’s defense is that they were just trolling the Internet for dirt on a prominent Republican so what could be wrong with that?
“Referencing mainstream press accounts examining the conduct of a public figure and his business ventures — as we did — is wholly appropriate,” declared the NJDC statement.
But what kind of political advocacy is this?
NJDC is, according to its website, supposed to be engaged in a campaign to get “Jewish support for Democrats at the federal and state levels of government.”
How is defaming another Jew, and not even one running for office, going to accomplish that?