09 Jan 2005 Overlawyered: Newsweek v. Washington Monthly

We are in for a tumultuous four years, folks. Nationally, the Right is in the most advantageous policymaking position it has been in since before the New Deal. The Left knows it, and is throwing everything it can against the Right in an attempt to stop or slow its agenda.

One of several top areas of confrontation is, and for some time will remain, civil legal (tort) reform.

I say all this by way of introduction to one of the battles in the tort reform war, as illuminated by a post on Walter Olson’s Overlawyered.com today.

In December 2003, Newsweek ran an cover story on tort reform by Stuart Taylor, Jr. and Evan Thomas. Reformers loved it (including me). The liberal Washington Monthly did not. In October 2004, the Washington Monthly picked apart the Newsweek piece. One of the Newsweek authors responded, asking the Washington Monthly to run the response in their magazine. So far, its editors have not.

The rebuttal, along with Washington Monthly’s allegations of Newsweek inaccuracies, makes for an excellent survey of some of the key issues involved in tort reform. Walter Olson has it all here.

And as for Newsweek in this instance fighting on “our side” — well, I did say the Right is in its best position since the New Deal, didn’t I?