"Make No Law"

"And as to the sweeping notion that Sullivan had been injured and was entitled to money damages because of the general criticism of 'the police' in Montgomery, the justices held that: 'no court of last resort in this country has ever held, or even suggested, that prosecutions for libel on government have any place in the American system of jurisprudence.' This is why all of us can blast the Obama Administration, or the Bush Administration, without fear that some bureaucrat within those administrations will consider himself aggrieved enough to sue."


Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic marks the fiftieth anniversary of New York Times v. Sullivan.