What should be know about the tort of defamation is that it involves the malicious (as in intent to commit the tort) publication of information know to be false about a person (actually this tort also exists for recording bogus liens on surface or mineral estates, its called 'slander of title') and as such a complete defense is that the information is true.
It should be understood that the defense is complete because it destroys what of the necessary elements of the tort. This is as opposed to an affirmative defense, which is an exception that says, all the elements of the tort happened but some other things happened too that make it not a tort anymore.
Anyhow, because to show that its true that someone is a bad character requires evidence of being a bad person, the type of bad character evidence which is normally inadmisable in a civil case become admissable.
Final comment: look at the photo that Bloomberg chose for the article. It's Bush, walking around, totally free of any context by the background: a field of green grash cropped close in the photo. What a great job! Here: one good turn deserves another. Here's my context for this blog entry. My -- Text -- has --- trapped -- the -- Cheese!
