Shafer: Richard Perle Libel Watch, Week 34

http://slate.msn.com//id/2091198/

Eight months ago, foreign policy hawk Richard N. Perle vowed to sue investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh for libel over Hersh's New Yorker feature, "Lunch With the Chairman." Perle described the story as "all lies, from beginning to end," in the March 12 New York Sun. Perle, a leading neoconservative thinker and member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, told the Sun Hersh had libeled him by falsely implying that was using his Pentagon position for personal financial gain.
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With just 18 weeks to file before the statute of limitations expires on his libel claim, one would expect Perle and his lawyers would be cracking. But today, instead of playing legal offense, Perle's counselors might be regrouping in a defensive formation. Yesterday's (Nov. 12) Financial Times reports that Hollinger International, which publishes the Chicago Sun-Times and London's Daily Telegraph, among other publications, is "examining investments made by Richard Perle, the former senior US defence adviser who is a Hollinger director, on behalf of the company."

According to the FT's Stephanie Kirchgaessner, the Perle probe is part of a larger internal inquiry led by former SEC Chairman Richard Breeden into "so-called 'related-party transactions,' or deals in which members of Hollinger's board or Hollinger executives benefited from deals the publisher agreed with other companies." Under investigation are "nearly $300m in management fees to Conrad Black, chief executive and chairman, and his deputies."

The studied transactions include a $2.5 million investment in Trireme Partners, the venture capital company co-managed by Perle that Hersh scrutinized so heavily in The New Yorker feature. Kirchgaessner continues: "Also under review is a $14m investment the company made under Mr Perle's direction through Hillman Capital, a venture capital group controlled by Gerald Hillman—who has since become a partner at Trireme and, like Mr Perle, is a member of the US Defense Policy Board." Perle and Hillman had no comment.

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Perle is so loathsome.

Edit: correct link.

wants to sue the guardian in the UK cuz of the easy libel laws, then come here and get hersch

what a mother effer

He is Bush's lawyer who helped him with the Texas Ranger deal.

I am currently in a state of shock after doing a Google search of Richard Breeden and George W. Bush.

Breeden will do a GREAT job, indeed. /sarcasm

You can't make this stuff up.

Time for a break: to Harry Shearer's "Le Show" on NPR.

is there anything better than "Dick Cheney's Underground Diary?"

"less than a heartbeat away from.....history"

something like that

I love how he does W calling Poppy hoping for his approval, yet somehow he can't do everything right. And Bushisms galore!

Also wanted to share this link:

http://www.harryshearer.com/leshow/index.html

All that "Honor and integrity" Bush brought to the White House? I do. (Not!)

that if you analyse the Bush gang, each thug is basically a rep of their personal corporate sponsor. They all are in positions where their job is to generate obscene profits for their company.

Cheney - Halliburton
Perle - Hollinger
Feith's sponsor was discussed on Moyers ( I can't remember the name)
Rice - The oil and gas interests vying for power in the Caspian region
Baker - Carlyle
etc etc etc