Hey….That Child Rapist Reminds Me of Someone….

…but when that someone is you, you aren't apt to want to sue for libel, as New Republic columnist Michael Crowley says when he decides that the sinister "Mick Crowley" in Michael Crichton's new novel Next –like the real Crowley a Yale educated political writer (and unlike the real Crowley a baby raper)–was a jab at him for daring to flay Crichton in a March New Republic article for becoming a right-wing fear-monger.

It's an old device in using fiction to attack an actual person, Crowley maintains–add some horrible detail such that no sane person with concern for their reputation would want to stand up and say, hey, everyone will recognize that child-raper as me!

Whole convoluted business explained by the New York Times.

Unobligatory libertariana: Murray Rothbard on why libel law is unlibertarian .