When prominent climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann informed the National Review that, unless they retracted, he would sue them for their defamatory attacks on his climate science work, the National Review responded with a classic bit of Orwellian doublespeak. What Rich Lowry (Yes, that Rich Lowry, who saw "star bursts" while watching Sarah Palin's VP nomination speech), the NR's editor, said was this:
we will be embarking on a journalistic project of great interest to us and our readers.
And this is where you come in. If Mann goes through with it, we’re probably going to call on you to help fund our legal fight and our investigation of Mann through discovery. If it gets that far, we may eventually even want to hire a dedicated reporter to comb through the materials and regularly post stories on Mann.
What the National Review and its co-defendants have done instead is fight tooth and nail to prevent discovery from ever happening. They filed motions to dismiss Dr. Mann's case
as discussed here, allowing them to temporarily invoke a privilege against any discovery taking place.
Discovery in a civil law suit is a very powerful tool. It forces a party to submit to interrogation and open its papers and premises to the eyes of their litigation opponent. The disclosures required are extremely broad and sanctions for concealment or non-cooperation can be severe.
After the court overruled the defendant's motions to dismiss they asked for that to be reconsidered. The court said no, so the defendants moved for permission to take the ruling against their motion to dismiss for an immediate appeal, called an interlocutory appeal.
Now, the motions for interlocutory appeal have been overruled and it is certain that discovery will immediately move forward, almost a year after the suit was filed.
Discovery is totally to the advantage of Dr. Mann and against the interests of the National Review and its minions. Because it is scientific work, Dr. Mann's work is an open book which has survived every challenge and investigation attacking it by the climate change denial community, including the National Review. Dr. Mann has nothing to hide.
It is the defendants who are in a hot spot, now. Every aspect of their knowledge and thinking about climate change reporting is now open for scrutiny in full daylight.
Dr. Mann has been a poster boy for powerful right wing voices denying anthropogenic climate warming, which have attacked his scientific work, without success, from a number of directions. Now, Dr. Mann and his legal team have the chance to pry open the dark and murky recesses from which what passes for right wing thinking emerges. It won't be pretty.
But neither are the Friday the 13th movies. Make popcorn.