Wonkette

Yes, we know you’re getting tired of her; so are we (and just wait until her TV show airs). But since this blog owes some of its prominence to reporting her misadventures, we owe you an update about Jessica Cutler.

According to the Associated Press:

A judge on Wednesday allowed a lawsuit to proceed against Jessica Cutler, the former Senate aide who posted details of her sex life on the Internet. The case brought by Sen. Mike DeWine’s former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Robert Steinbuch, alleges that Cutler engaged in an invasion of his privacy in 2004 by publishing sexually explicit facts about a relationship with Steinbuch.

But even though the judge declined to dismiss the suit, his ruling on the statute-of-limitations issue may not bode well for Steinbuch:

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled that Steinbuch had one year from the time of the Internet postings to bring the matter to court. Almost all of the material at issue in the case was posted on the Internet more than a year before the lawsuit was filed May 18, 2005.

Steinbuch, by the way, is now a law professor at the University of Arkansas (where Bill Clinton used to teach). Kinda gross to imagine your professor entering through the back door, isn’t it?

Yawn, this is boring; we don’t care about this technical legal crap. Where’s all the juicy stuff?

After the jump, of course.

Update: This post is the subject of a correction.

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* Yes, tipsters, we know all about how Jessica Cutler’s most famous sperm donor was in town, sporting a new “salt and pepper” beard, discussing something really boring, and, no, we don’t know if he’ll be out this weekend prowling for poontang and how much he’s willing to pay. Why not go get this sort of information from Jessica? I’m sure she’ll have something on her blog once she spits out this afternoon’s dicks. [Cleveland Plain Dealer] MORE »

While Wonkette partied their way through a long Friday night, there was much discussion of that cuddly cutie-pie that fills the gaping hole in our heart that’s chewed out daily by cynicism. We speak, of course, of the Stick, and we will not stop speaking of the Stick until the day of his birth — Stickmas — is a Federal holiday. There is, by the way, a growing fifth column already plotting to thwart the dastardly plan to take Butterstick to China, with talk of human shields and prank calls. Ground zero of the plan to save the Stick could be right here.

Today, the folks at the National Zoo describe Butterstick as a “wild child.” He’s chewing shoelaces, playing in his water bowl, and he isn’t taking any crap from moms: “He grabs a mouthful of her hair along with the skin, and pulls and chews relentlessly.” That sentence sounds like it’s straight out of one of the Steinbuch v. Cutler depositions!

Elsewhere in the panda enclosure, Tian Tian is going bananas as well:

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There are many wonderful things about Jessica Cutler’s motion to dismiss Robert Steinbuch’s invasion of privacy suit, chief among them the contention that because Cutler only gave the URL of the blog to three friends, she didn’t mean for the blog to be public. In fact, the whole opening anecdote of the motion reads like a “Bridgette-Jones-tries-to-program-the-VCR” set piece:

Cutler visited the “Basic Settings” area of Blogger. There, Cutler entered a “Description” of the Blog, which Cutler simply defined to be the same as the “Blog title” — “Washingtonienne” (Ex. 1 [Cutler Decl. ¶ 5]). Next, the “Basic Settings” area asked Cutler whether she wanted to “Add your Blog to our listings?” Answering “yes” here would have displayed the Blog’s URL on Blogger’s public Internet site, thus advertising its existence to the world of cyberspace. Importantly, Cutler answered this question “no”! She did that in an effort to limit access to the Blog only to those close personal friends (and one friend of one of those friends) with whom she wanted to share the contents of the Blog. Cutler could not find in the “Basic Settings” area or any other area of Blogger the option of making a blog password protected. And thus, by not adding the Blog to Blogger’s listings, Cutler took all opportunities Blogger offered to restrict access to the Blog to a few individuals.

Except, of course, the whole putting-it-on-the-internet thing. MORE »

An op-ed in the WP today looks at the legal merits of Robert Steinbuch’s publicity stunt law suit against Jessica Culter (a.k.a. “The Washingtonienne”). There’s apparently merit to the case, but only if you use doc’s time machine to find a court in the previous century. Bemoaning how everyone is all concerned about free speech these days, the op-editor (one Andrew J. McClurg) sniffles that “Today’s technology grants any person — no matter how selfish, irresponsible or malicious — the power to invade privacy globally, at almost no cost.” And you thought the internet was only good for porn! Speaking of, McClurg goes on to warn that today’s number one safe-sex query shouldn’t be “Do you have a condom?” but “Do you have a computer?” MORE »