Tool Who Lost Florida Democrat Senate Primary to Sue Newspapers

Without even addressing the merits of his compliant, let's just say if political candidates could sue newspapers then there'd be a long line of conservatives who've gone through the media's rectal exams waiting to sue. Having said that, if you're a guy who got waxed by 26 points by a very weak candidate you might just want to lick your wounds and go back to partying with Lindsay Lohan and taking trips to Cuba.

Jeff Greene, a Florida real estate developer who lost one of the year’s most bitter and closely watched primary elections, is preparing to sue The St. Petersburg Times and The Miami Herald for libel, claiming that articles they published cost him his bid for the United States Senate.

Mr. Greene lost the Democratic primary last week to Kendrick B. Meek, who will face Gov. Charlie Crist, an independent, and Marco Rubio, a Republican, in November.

A libel suit is a rare step for a political figure. While many candidates complain about unfair news coverage, few go as far as making their complaints a legal case. But Mr. Greene, who has deep pockets and apparently the wherewithal to pursue the case all the way to trial, has proved he is no ordinary politician.

Dogged by rumors about wild parties aboard his 145-foot yacht and about fraudulent real estate deals, Mr. Greene will seek at least $500 million in damages in part, he said, to teach the news media a lesson. “I want to send a message to every newspaper in the country: Do your homework,” he said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “I deserve to have the record corrected, and they deserve to be punished.”

He has hired L. Lin Wood, a prominent libel lawyer who has won settlements for other public figures who claimed they were defamed by the news media, including Richard A. Jewell, the security guard cleared as a suspect in the 1996 Olympics bombing in Atlanta. Mr. Wood said he expected to file a formal complaint in state court in Miami-Dade County on Wednesday.

Welcome to politics, Jeffy. Might want to bone up on things before you ever run again with this history.

Merits of the case aside, it seems a stretch for Greene to pin his loss on those stories. As a candidate, he came to the race with little knowledge of Florida’s political landscape and enough baggage to sink his 145-foot yacht. Among the highlights:

- He became a billionaire betting on credit default swaps. Translation: As Floridians lost homes and saw home values plummet, Greene got rich.

- His recent past was populated with a cast of colorful — and politically damaging — characters. He allowed Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss to live in one of his guest homes. Lindsay Lohan partied on his yacht. And, most famously, he asked Tyson — the former heavyweight champ, ear-biter and convicted rapist — to serve as his best man three years ago.

- He claimed he was a “life-long Democrat” when, in fact, in his only other bid for elected office, he ran as a Republican.

- He’d been a permanent resident of Florida for just a little over two years.

- He offered several versions of why he and his yacht visited Cuba a few years ago. First, he said he hadn’t made the 2007 trip. Then he said he was on a Jewish mission trip. Then he said his boat had to stop in Cuba for repairs.

With all that, I love seeing the media punished for being unfair to some politicians but the best way to do that is to ignore them.