Daniel Snyder’s decision to file a defamation of character lawsuit against Washington City Paper earlier this year met with predictable derision from this corner and many others, but the Redskins owner would like you to know that he’s “not thin-skinned about personal criticism…I am the first to admit that I’ve made mistakes.” However, “sometimes, especially in the age of the Internet, when an unretracted lie can live forever, you have to draw the line.” And that line comes when you accuse Snyder of fucking with your choice of home telephone carrier. The following are excerpts from Snyder’s editorial in Monday’s Washington Post :
Among many examples in the November 2010 article, the most egregious was when the article stated: This is “the same Dan Snyder who got caught forging names as a telemarketer for Snyder Communications.” That is a clear factual assertion that I am guilty of forgery, a serious crime that goes directly to the heart of my reputation — as a businessman, marketer and entrepreneur. It is false.
Remarkably, several weeks after I filed the lawsuit, the publisher wrote in Washington City Paper that she was “baffled” that anyone could read the article and believe that I had been accused of personally engaging in forgery. “In fact,” she wrote, “we have no reason to believe he personally did any such thing — and our story never says he did.”
Well, I am baffled, too, since personally engaging in forgery is precisely what the paper explicitly said I had been “caught” doing. If the publisher has “no reason to believe” that “Dan Snyder got caught forging names,” then why not retract the words that explicitly said I was a forger and simply apologize?
Synder has a point here. In this country, you’re innnocent until proven guilty, even if you’ve settled out of court.