David needn't worry, actually. Because the folks at Wizbang are about to discover that there are consequences for leveling these charges.
While it's true that, as the Deseret News reported, Hailey himself is not considering legal action against the authors of the Wizbang posts that have openly libeled him, the same cannot be said of the officials at Utah State University.
Hailey, in fact, assured me that the university's attorneys consider the Wizbang posts "fully actionable" and are in the process of preparing legal remedy for the defamation of character that the blog has leveled both against Hailey and the university. It's difficult to say at this point whether they will act on it, but there's at least some likelihood they will. . . .
So here's what is probably about to happen: USU's attorneys will send legal letters to the Wizbang authors demanding a full retraction (and, if justice is served, a full apology to both Hailey and the university), upon pain of facing a civil action for libel. If the authors refuse, then they'll be served with more papers detailing the civil lawsuit filed against them.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I really haven't followed the Hailey story all that closely. I discounted the findings of that story after other experts came out against it and stopped reading the posts concerning it.
From my experience in the legal field, however, I'm guessing that the University's lawyers will probably go forward with this. They're going to see Wizbang as being largely unable to afford the legal fees associated with a major civil battle and will use the legal system to bully them into dropping the story altogether regardless of whether or not Wizbang was correct in their reporting.
Update:
Glenn Reynolds, in response to an email I sent him about this story, says that Hailey would be "deeply foolish" to sue the guys at Wizbang. I'd point out that Hailey indicated he wasn't seeking legal action personally, but believed the University's lawyers found Wizbang's commentary "actionable." But in essence I agree with Glenn.
Lawyers think everything is "actionable" when first asked. I expect the gang at Wizbang to get some nasty letters from the University's legal counsel, but I really don't see this thing making it all the way to court. The issue at the heart of this controversy is a study which has already been questioned by several experts. There's not enough concrete fact here to support a full-on libel lawsuit against Wizbang. The University's case would be very, very weak and the potential for them to come out looking foolish would be high.
That being said, bloggers would do well to learn a lesson from this.
Update 2:
I've reviewed some more of the posts at Wizbang regarding the Hailey study and, given this retraction from Kevin earlier today, I really don't see where a lawsuit would have a leg to stand on. Kevin has already taken out some of the unnecessary comments made about Hailey's character and apologized for them (this was not done at the direction of Hailey or the university).
From where I'm sitting, the only way a lawsuit could be filed is if the university claimed their institution (or Hailey's reputation) were somehow defamed by Wizbang's allegations that the study was based on false pretenses. But that would be a tough row to hoe given that some experts are already questioning the findings of that study.
I'll stick to my earlier conclusion. The Wizbang guys will likely get some nasty letters, but don't expect this to make it to court.
Update 3:
Kevin at Wizbang is saying that they aren't aware of any lawsuit at this time. Which is a good thing.
I wouldn't be surprised if Hailey were talking out of hand a bit when he made the comments about a lawsuit. As I've pointed out above, the case would be hard to win and the university (and Hailey) could, and probably would, come out looking very bad.