Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never cost me $30 million. Sorry, Bob Barr.

Rep. Bob Barr, R-Georgia, has filed a $30 million suit naming former President Bill Clinton, Clinton strategist James Carville and, of course, the requisite party to every lawsuit filed in the United States, Hustler publisher Larry Flynt.

Why? Barr claims his reputation was hurt, and he suffered incredible emotional distress as a result of a 27-page article printed in Hustler that accused Barr of hypocritically supporting family values in public while neglecting those standards in his private life. In other words, the article accuses Barr of being a politician – a good one, in fact, since the “acting” Hustler alleges was moderately successful.

In a statement to the press, Barr announced that “James Carville can preach his lies about people on television and Larry Flynt can print whatever he wants in the pages of his smut magazine, but at the end of the day, they are going to be held accountable.”

There’s only one problem with that statement. It’s a lie.

First things first, no one will be held accountable for this.

After all, if there’s anyone in the world who can beat this rap, it’s Larry Flynt, everyone’s favorite martyr for the First Amendment, and it is assumed that by everyone I mean everyone except political conservatives, women, those gentlemen who don’t want to see kidneys in their pornography and (shudder) perhaps those who don’t care for pornography at all.

Regardless of what you think of Flynt or his “smut,” rest assured that he will beat yet another rap, though this one is far more groundless than your average suit against the man whose offenses against human decency include graphic pornography, foul language and helping bolster the film careers of Woody Harrelson and Courtney Love.

After all these terrible things that Flynt has done, I just want to say one thing. Thanks, Larry. Georgia voters in the heavily contested primary involving Rep. Barr now know just how desperately he needs his office and hopefully will vote for his opponent.

In fact, I think the only solution in this case is to respond in kind. Undoubtedly, Larry Flynt has a team of lawyers sleeping through this moderate threat to his erection-based empire, and I think it’s time to put them to good use. If Barr thinks his reputation was damaged by this 27-page article, then how did Flynt’s reputation feel after he was accused of printing a “smut” magazine? For that matter, how did Hustler’s readers (and I use the term “read” quite loosely, I assure you) feel about their choice of magazine being impugned?

Barr is protected in chambers with the Speech and Debate clause in Article I of the Constitution, which allows him to say whatever he wants in Congress. If a Congressman accused President Bush of being a terrorist who plotted the Sept. 11 attacks to boost his approval rating, he or she cannot be charged with slander. He or she is legally within his or her rights, so long as the statements in question are made in Congress. This actually gives Barr a great deal of protection. He can accuse presidents and Congressmen of whatever he wants in the House and never face prosecution.

While Barr could accuse Clinton of sexual misconduct and lewd behavior, no one in the presscould say anything about him without first eliminating any malice they may have for him. That is the duty of the press. Barr, on the other hand, can talk smack about me, Larry Flynt and various other muckrakers until the cows come home. For that matter, he can accuse me and Larry of doing all sorts of things with those cows once they are home.

It appears this has gone to his head, and he has little respect for the First Amendment rights of others. If Barr really respected the rights of Flynt and Carville, he’d have something more conclusively to sue about than mere emotional distress. He could produce some cold hard evidence that what they have said about him is not true.

As I’ve not seen the article in question, I can’t say conclusively that Flynt is within the law, but if anyone’s familiar with the sketchy boundaries of the First Amendment, it’s Larry Flynt. There’s little doubt in my mind that what he published was either substantiated enough to get by or else established as a mere opinion.

This lawsuit is really only surprising in one sense. I had no clue that Hustler ever had articles, let alone articles spanning 27 pages. That’s a hell of a breather from hot girl-on-girl action for your average degenerate.

If Barr’s reputation in the state of Georgia was really damaged so heavily by the article, then there is one thing that really should worry a family-values Republican like himself: the fact that the constituents who voted him into office are all at home jerking off to Hustler.

Tim Kearns is a senior in political science from Bellevue, Neb.