To the Journal editor:

President Trump’s latest lament, about how our “weak” U.S. libel laws are causing him pain, hardly has me crying buckets of tears.

Mr. Trump says these libel laws — which help individuals protect their reputations while protecting everyone’s (First Amendment) free press-free speech rights — need to be “updated” and are “so unfair.”

As an old J-school grad (Go Hoosiers!) and retired newspaper guy, I can assert the following after mining memories of key lessons learned from my old college communications law class: To win a libel case, an elected public official like Mr. Trump must prove his critics engaged in malicious intent to defame him, or showed a reckless disregard for the truth. And he must supply evidence of provable, actual damage — mental or financial — to his reputation or character.

I and many others suspect, however, that Mr. Grab ‘Em by the Xxssy saw his decent-reputation well run dry a long time ago. And his “character” showed its shallowness, reckless regard for the truth and, yes, malicious intent years ago (allegation about President Obama’s U.S. citizenship)

So it comes down to this: Mr. Trump no character left to defame. His character plays the role of falsehoods and ill-repute. Cue the violins for him? I will not.

Dixon Dudderar

Harbor Springs