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It's not nice to falsely accuse someone of complicity in a terrorist conspiracy.

But that's exactly what the money-losing New York Times did to Brandon Darby, a former left-wing activist who decided a few years ago that America wasn't so bad after all.

At great risk to himself, Darby undermined a terrorist plot to firebomb the 2008 GOP convention. Now Darby has returned fire with a defamation lawsuit against the supposed newspaper of record.

As I wrote Friday at The Daily Caller, a recent New York Times article stated matter-of-factly that Darby "encouraged" two anarchists to attack Republicans - a complete falsehood. (Here is the full back story on Darby.) In fact as the judge sentenced one of the plotters he specifically made a finding that Darby had not encouraged the conspiracy. The far-left homegrown terrorist even admitted he had made the story up - and the judge gave him an extra heavy sentence for his lies.

Yet somehow New York Times reporter James C. McKinley Jr. missed these easily discoverable facts which were available on the Internet. It's way too early for Darby to be counting his money, but law professor Eugene Volokh thinks he may have a strong case.  Lachlan Markay of NewsBusters echoed Volokh after interviewing him: "It will be interesting to see how the Times reacts. But just based on the information here, it seems that Darby may well have a case." (Volokh's blog post on this topic is at the Volokh Conspiracy.)

The 20-something plotters on whom Darby informed, David Guy McKay and Bradley Neil Crowder, made riot shields and were ready to use them in St. Paul, Minnesota to help demonstrators block streets near the convention that ended up putting John McCain and Sarah Palin on the 2008 Republican presidential ticket. The two terrorists also manufactured instruments of death calculated to inflict maximum pain and bodily harm on people whose political views they disagreed with.

Thanks to the information Darby provided to authorities, police raided a residence and found gas masks, slingshots, helmets, knee pads and eight Molotov cocktails consisting of bottles filled with gasoline with attached wicks made from tampons. "They mixed gasoline with oil so it would stick to clothing and skin and burn longer," Darby said.

Meanwhile, the George Soros-funded, taxpayer-funded movie "Better This World" which depicts McKay and Crowder as innocent pawns in a larger game premiered at the SXSW film festival in Austin, Texas, this weekend.

Don't be fooled. They're the bad guys and they deserve what they got.

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