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more willing to admit-at least internally-that its program was
seriously flawed in its methodology, if not its conclusions) . In a
powerful final coda, she devastates CBS and to a lesser extent
Time,
as well as their lawyers Cravath, Swaine and Moore, for trying to in–
timidate her publisher into "suppressing or at least delaying
publication of the book . " The spectacle of these great defenders of
the First Amendment attempting to use the threat of libel suits
against a book which criticizes their defense of libel suits brought
against them by those whom they criticized, is enough to bring joy to
the heart of anyone, like this reviewer, who is skeptical about our
ability to determine the Truth with finality or absoluteness.
An important assumption underlying our commitment to
freedom of expression is that truth is a process, not a product. I am
confident that Thomas Jefferson would have understood and en–
joyed the old Jewish folk-tale about the rabbi who was conducting a
domestic-relations court in a small Eastern European shtetl. A
young rabbinical student had been sent to observe the sage at work.
First the wife spoke: "Rabbi, my husband is a terrible man. He
stays out all night, drinks away his salary, beats me, and doesn't
clean up after himself. " The rabbi pondered for a moment and then
offered his rabbinical conclusion : "My daughter, I have listened to
you and you are right." Then the husband spoke: "Rabbi, my wife
is a shrew, she screams all day and night, she won't sleep with me,
she can't cook, and she keeps the house a mess." The rabbi again
pondered and offered his view. "My son, I have listened to you, and
you are right." The student leaped up and shouted, "But, Rabbi,
they can't both be right." The rabbi pondered for a moment and
then responded: "My son, you are right."
Jefferson, who was somewhat more of a skeptic than the rabbi,
probably would have told everybody they were wrong, but the point
would have been similar and reflects an important premise underly–
ing our First Amendment. The most basic right under that charter
ofliberty is "the right to be
wrong,"
and indeed the need to err on
the side of wrongly criticizing government and other powerful in–
stitutions rather than wrongly withholding such criticism.
Renata Adler, after persuasively demonstrating that both CBS
and
Time
were probably wrong-at least in their methodologies and
details, if not in the thrust of their stories-jumps to the questionable
conclusion that "neither the ninety minutes [of the CBS broadcast]
nor the paragraph [in
Time]
should have been broadcast or pub–
lished... . " She also believes that neither law suit should have
