"Jury Rules Against Palin in Libel Case Against The New York Times."

The NYT reports.

Ms. Palin sued The Times in 2017 after the newspaper published — and then swiftly corrected and apologized for — an editorial that wrongly suggested that she had incited a deadly shooting in Arizona years earlier.

The case became a bellwether for battles over press freedoms and media bias in the Trump era, with Ms. Palin’s lawyers saying they hoped to use it to attack a decades-old Supreme Court precedent that makes it harder for public figures to sue news outlets for defamation....

During the trial, Ms. Palin told the jury that the editorial “kicked the oomph” right out of her, damaging her reputation. She said it had ignited another round of criticism of her years after the map was first distributed.

"Some historians who follow the presidency say Biden has always shown flashes of anger when he feels underestimated."

"While they are far more fleeting than Trump’s brandishing of grievances, they have at times been unmistakable. 'There has always been this issue of resentment with Biden. He resented [former president Barack] Obama and crew for supplanting him in 2008 and for telling him not to run in [2016], and he has many other resentments,' said Tevi Troy, a presidential historian who recently published a book on the relationship between presidents and CEOs. 'But can you imagine how resentful he is of the shifting narratives and the way he’s been pushed aside and manipulated and not treated fairly. So yeah, I can see him being resentful.'"

From "Biden touts his legacy, but frustration seeps through/The president is observing the traditions of a peaceful transfer of power, but his regrets and misgivings are evident" (WaPo)(free-access link).

Lots to talk about there, but I want to focus on "brandishing" — Trump’s brandishing of grievances. This is an article about Biden, his resentfulness, but Trump must be inserted, and he must be worse. Biden has  fleeting flashes of well-founded anger, but Trump has grievances, and he brandishes them. So Biden briefly displays resentment but Trump waves his resentment around like a weapon. 

Just yesterday, I was talking about the journalistic deployment of the word "brandish." Discussing a NYT article — "In Display of Fealty, Tech Industry Curries Favor With Trump/It was a week of frenzied activity as Silicon Valley billionaires and their companies brandished checks and compliments for President-elect Trump"  — I wrote:

"If I were advising the candidates, I’d tell them to double down on weirdness."

Says David Brooks, on September 8, 2008.

Blogging that at the time, here, I said that Brooks observed that "Obama started out weird and did well, then got conventional and did less well, especially with McCain getting weird. 'Weirdness wins,' [Brooks] says."

I thought you might like to see that today, when so many people are saying "weird" at the same time and as if it's a bad thing.

Let me give you a bit more of Brooks:

"The former president believes he can fight or talk his way out of most situations. "

"Frequent visits to the courtroom have also given Mr. Trump familiarity with the unwieldy proceeding, where he projects control, often whispering in his lawyers’ ears, prompting their objections to the attorney general’s questions. Yet Mr. Trump is deeply, personally enraged by this trial — and by the fact that his children have had to testify, several people who have spoken with him said — and he may not be able to restrain himself on the stand. The testimony will push Mr. Trump far outside his comfort zone of social media and the rally stage, where he is a master of mockery, a no-holds barred flamethrower who relishes most opportunities to attack foes. He leveraged that persona during his days as a tabloid businessman and fixture of New York’s tabloids and found that it worked just as well in the 2016 presidential race. He has since taken control of the Republican Party, and his style has become a defining influence in contemporary politics. The witness stand is a different venue. It’s a seat that requires care and control, where lying is a crime and emotional outbursts can land you in contempt of court.... Mr. Trump, 77, has been showing signs of strain and age on the campaign trail.... The test of the former president’s credibility, coherence and self-control could supply his opponents with ammunition on the campaign trail...."

 
I'm reading "Trump’s Credibility, Coherence and Control Face Test on Witness Stand/The former president will testify Monday in a trial that threatens the business empire that created his public persona. He will be out of his element and under oath" in the NYT.

I read that passage out loud here at Meadhouse. Lots of laughter. I said the NYT is milking this for all its worth, really straining to make testifying seem as dangerous as possible. Meade said: "Hey, NYT, this is your one chance to write that purple prose."

By the way, NYT should have edited out the phrase "supply his opponents with ammunition on the campaign trail." Remember when the NYT was involved in blaming Sarah Palin for causing a political shooting because her campaign used a map marked with an image that looked something like crosshairs?

Anyway, the idea that Trump will lose his cool and become enraged on the witness stand is funny. Sometimes he seems like a fictional character, but you sound naive and absurd imagining that he's going to behave like a character in a courtroom drama. I know there will be movies about him some day, but I bet there won't be a single one with anything about this New York case about puffing the value of his real estate.

But go ahead, now's your big chance to act as though Trump will Al Pacino it up....

"Not long ago, it would have been embarrassing for adults to admit that they found avant-garde painting too difficult and preferred the comforts of story time."

"What Gadsby did was give the audience permission — moral permission — to turn their backs on what challenged them, and to ennoble a preference for comfort and kitsch."

Jason Farago in "With Hannah Gadsby’s ‘It’s Pablo-matic,’ the Joke’s on the Brooklyn Museum/The Australian comedian turns curator in a show about Picasso’s complicated legacy. But it’s women artists the exhibition really shortchanges" (NYT)

This is a review of a Brooklyn Museum art exhibition called "It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby." Gadsby is a standup comedian who has lambasted Picasso for being a sexist. The show has a smattering of works by Picasso juxtaposed with various works by women that are presented as telling women's "stories," with inscriptions on the wall like "I want my story to be heard” and “entirely new stories”:

"It is hard to overstate just how much of a jolt to the political system Sarah Palin delivered when she defeated her first fellow Republican 16 years ago."

"He was Frank Murkowski, the sitting governor of Alaska and a towering figure in the 49th state. She was a 'hockey mom' and the former mayor of a small, working-class town who vowed to stick it to the 'good ol’ boys.'... Today, having lost her bid for Congress after years out of the spotlight, Ms. Palin is a much diminished force. She was, in many ways, undone by the same political currents she rode to national prominence.... Along the way, she helped redefine the outer limits of what a politician could say as she made dark insinuations about Barack Obama’s background and false claims about government 'death panels' that could deny health care to seniors and people with disabilities. Now, a generation of Republican stars follows the template she helped create.... But as the next generation rose up, Ms. Palin’s brand of politics no longer seemed as novel or as outrageous. Next to Mr. Trump’s lies about a huge conspiracy to deny him a second term, or Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s casual allusions to political violence, Ms. Palin’s provocations more than a decade ago can seem almost quaint...."

Writes Jeremy W. Peters, in "Sarah Palin Loses as the Party She Helped Transform Moves Past Her/The former Alaska governor, once the standard-bearer of the G.O.P.’s dog-whistling, no-apologies culture, was no match for the same forces she rode to national prominence" (NYT).

"Cotton Mather called them 'The Hidden Ones.' They never preached or sat in a deacon’s bench. Nor did they vote or attend Harvard."

"Neither, because they were virtuous women, did they question God or the magistrates. They prayed secretly, read the Bible through at least once a year, and went to hear the minister preach even when it snowed. Hoping for an eternal crown, they never asked to be remembered on earth. And they haven’t been. Well-behaved women seldom make history; against Antinomians and witches, these pious matrons have had little chance at all."

That's from "Vertuous Women Found: New England Ministerial Literature, 1668-1735," a 1976 article by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a professor of Early American history at Harvard. I'm reading that at Professor Buzzkill because I wanted to know the source of the line I put in boldface, which is a pretty common feminist slogan.

Some people think that quote originated with Marilyn Monroe (or one of many others), but no, it was Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

Anyway, the old saying popped into my head when I saw that title of a new NYT op-ed, "The Unruly Heirs of Sarah Palin" by Rosie Gray. Let's read:

Is ranked-choice voting more of a scam than other kinds of voting?

60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican, but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion—which disenfranchises voters—a Democrat "won."

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) September 1, 2022

Rouge droplet?

I'm trying to read "Astronauts should not masturbate in zero gravity, NASA scientist says" (NY Post):

Astronauts have been warned against masturbating in space over fears female astronauts could get impregnated by stray fluids. There are strict guidelines over “alone-time” onboard in zero gravity. 

Scientists have warned even the slightest rouge droplet could cause chaos on board.

Rouge droplet? In space, is semen red? No, it's just the kind of typo spell-checkers don't catch, the funniest ones, the ones that are other words, like "rouge" for "rogue."

Conan O’Brien was interviewing a NASA engineer, who said, “Three female astronauts can be impregnated by the same man on the same session … it finds its way.” 

"People often say that Sarah Palin anticipated the rise of Donald Trump, but you could say the same of Pat Buchanan or Ross Perot or Herman Cain..."

"... depending on your focus. Trumpism is perhaps best understood as two things: populist-right mood and populist-right policy. The mood is one of resentment toward predatory or incompetent elites, and the policy (in theory, at least) is one of strength through self-containment — whether regarding immigration or commerce or military deployment. J.D. Vance, running for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, represents Trumpism mainly as policy, while Palin represents it mainly as mood. This can make Palin maddeningly hazy on issues that many conservatives and liberals alike care about most.... People often point to personality traits shared by Palin and Trump, such as thin skin and self-absorption... Both have thin skins, but Trump’s covers a hearty and insensate core; Palin described being excluded from McCain’s funeral as a 'gut punch' and told Fox host Sean Hannity that she could watch Tina Fey’s impression of her only with 'the volume all the way down.' Trump enjoys riling the other side, while Palin, despite her flame throwing, seems most eager to please her own side....  Palin’s religious faith alarms many of her critics in a way that Trump’s religious faith, if that’s what you can call it, never did.... [W]hen it comes to self-aggrandizement, her faith also appears to discourage her from Trumpian excesses.... If we can tell a human story of Sarah Palin, maybe people can wish her victory or defeat instead of vengeful triumph or destruction...."

Writes T.A. Frank in "Sarah Palin Has Long Been Ridiculed. I Wanted to Tell a Different Story. A reconsideration of the narrative that surrounds her as she runs for Congress" (WaPo).

Sarah Palin, praising Donald Trump.

Sarah Palin says Trump was "the best president that we've ever had." Somehow this leads to her talking about media coverage of her kids and how much Trump "cared about family" and supported "a culture of life and a culture of love." (Is she talking about the same Donald Trump?) pic.twitter.com/Q17LWWiByX

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 10, 2022

ADDED: Rupar has some more good clips:

"Immediately following the story’s publication, John and Cindy McCain both lied to the American people."

Wrote Steve Schmidt, quoted in "Former Top McCain Aide Says He Lied to Discredit a Times Article/'John McCain’s lie became mine,' Steve Schmidt wrote about Senator John McCain’s relationship with a female lobbyist" (NYT).

Defending his long silence on the matter, Mr. Schmidt said in his post that he “didn’t want to do anything to compromise John McCain’s honor.” His post then questioned Mr. McCain’s judgment in choosing the relatively unknown governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his running mate and accused Mr. McCain of cowering before her — “terrified of the creature that he created,” he wrote. 

In an interview on Monday, Mr. Schmidt said he was motivated to speak up now in part because he felt he had been unfairly associated for nearly 15 years with Mr. McCain’s choice of Ms. Palin, which he called “a burden.”

Speaking of honor, you should have unburdened yourself while the man you accuse of lying was still alive. Now, it looks like you just can't get enough of kicking Sarah Palin around. Go away.

"Sarah shocked many when she endorsed me very early in 2016, and we won big. Now, it’s my turn!"

"Sarah has been a champion for Alaska values, Alaska energy, Alaska jobs, and the great people of Alaska. She was one of the most popular Governors because she stood up to corruption in both State Government and the Fake News Media. Sarah lifted the McCain presidential campaign out of the dumps despite the fact that she had to endure some very evil, stupid, and jealous people within the campaign itself. They were out to destroy her, but she didn’t let that happen. Sarah Palin is tough and smart and will never back down, and I am proud to give her my Complete and Total Endorsement, and encourage all Republicans to unite behind this wonderful person and her campaign to put America First!"

Said Donald Trump, quoted in "Trump Finally Remembered That He Owes Sarah Palin a Favor" by Ed Kilgore (NY Magazine).

"Finally Remembered"... he endorsed her 2 days after she declared.

Kilgore ends with: "But Trump’s support gives her a chance to join the MAGA caucus in the House, in which she would barely stand out at all." A chance? Just a chance? Barely stand out? People like Kilgore make it too much fun to see the reemergence of Sarah Palin.

"[Santa Claus] is not affiliated with any party but describes himself as an 'independent, progressive, Democratic socialist.'"

"The man once known as Thomas O’Connor changed his legal name in 2005 and now lives, aptly, in the city of North Pole, outside Fairbanks, where he serves on the city council." 

From "51 candidates: A wild U.S. House race takes shape in Alaska" (Anchorage Daily News).

I'm happy to announce that I'm a Candidate in the Special Election for the U.S. House of Representatives for Alaska in 2022!
I'm an independent, progressive, democratic socialist, with an affinity for Bernie Sanders, and aim to represent ALL Alaskans :-)} https://t.co/DrYTU63Xp3 pic.twitter.com/r8HplPVC3z

— SANTA CLAUS FOR ALASKA (@SantaClausforAK) April 1, 2022

Santa's a familiar face in the crowd of 51. So, too, is Sarah Palin, who, unlike Santa, does not shake when she laughs like a bowlful of jelly:

Join our campaign -> https://t.co/CrlfiG8MJn

“Today I’m announcing my candidacy for the U.S. House seat representing Alaska. Public service is a calling, and I would be honored to represent the men and women of Alaska in Congress, just as Rep. Young did for 49 years.” - SP pic.twitter.com/pdMpeDGlRV

— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) April 2, 2022

"A jury returned a verdict against Sarah Palin in her libel suit against The New York Times on Tuesday..."

"... finding that there was insufficient evidence to prove the newspaper had defamed her in a 2017 editorial that erroneously linked her political rhetoric to a mass shooting."

The NYT reports.

“A federal judge said Monday he planned to dismiss Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against The New York Times….”

The NYT reports.

The unexpected decision by the judge, Jed S. Rakoff, came during the second day of jury deliberations in the case. He said he would allow the jury to continue working and that if they ruled in favor of Ms. Palin he would dismiss the case. He indicated that he believed an appeal by Ms. Palin was likely, and he said that the appeals court “would greatly benefit from knowing how the jury would decide” the case.

"It was devastating to read a false accusation that I had anything to do with murder. I felt powerless – that I was up against Goliath. The people were David. I was David...."

"When you know lies are told about you...that causes some stress. Hard to get a good night’s sleep.... The New York Times, the be all and end all, the loud voice in the media, had… taken a knee-jerk reaction and tried to score political points, trying to politicize horrific violence." 

Sarah Palin testified, quoted in "Palin calls New York Times the ‘Goliath’ in libel dispute" (AP).

"When a masked Palin walked past me into the courtroom this morning, she was clad in her trademark eyeglasses, high ponytail, and large-radius hoop earrings."

"She’d also broken out a pair of knee-high leather boots with heels like stilts. All eyes were drawn to her as she took her seat at the plaintiff’s table."

From the gendered prose stylings of Seth Stevenson at Slate — "Ticktock of a Journalist’s Nightmare/The first day of the Palin v. Times case laid out a tricky path ahead for the former governor—but a 'what if' hung over the court." 

That was published on Thursday. The newer report of the trial by Stevenson is "'Are You Up?'/The excruciating anatomy of a journalistic screwup at day two of the Sarah Palin—New York Times trial." 

At the merciful lunch break, I grabbed some food in the courthouse’s cafeteria. And who should I see when I looked up from my sad yogurt but Gov. Palin herself, wandering in to purchase some sort of hot beverage.  If there was any question about whether Palin qualifies under libel law as a “public figure,” her appearance in the courthouse canteen resolved it. Various law clerks and courthouse staffers who were eating their lunches froze mid-swallow, turned toward Palin, and openly gawked....

Then, in a fantastic collision of tabloid universes, Michael Avenatti—who was at the courthouse because he was being tried on fraud charges—walked in. Palin strolled over to greet him. The celebrity plaintiff and celebrity defendant briefly, and warmly, bantered, before each went their separate way. (Hours later, Avenatti was convicted of stealing $300,000 from a pornographic film actress.)

Yeah, the celebrities know all the other celebrities. They're automatic friends. I note that she strolled over to greet him. It's not as though he came looking for her. And now he's going to have to be a celebrity in prison. What's the structure of celebrity in prison? Palin is the celebrity doing the strolling. She's having her grievances aired — minutely — whether she hits the standard of "actual malice" or not.

And if not, she's got a great shot at being welcomed into the Supreme Court, where Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch are interested in talking about whether public figures ought to have to meet an "actual malice" standard anymore. See "Two Justices Say Supreme Court Should Reconsider Landmark Libel Decision/Justice Neil M. Gorsuch added his voice to that of Justice Clarence Thomas in questioning the longstanding standard for public officials set in New York Times v. Sullivan" (NYT).

"What has happened to [Kamala] Harris reminds me of another — but very different — female vice-presidential pick: former Alaska governor Sarah Palin..."

"Republican influencers handpicked Palin because.... She was striking, popular and (at least to some) was a family-values exemplar.... Uncharacteristically, McCain, after meeting with Palin for just over an hour, surrendered to the argument that she could rally the troops with a wink and a pair of red heels. Why, Republicans could even claim a feminist coup. And they were right — for about 30 minutes at the 2008 Republican National Convention. Things went downhill after that.... Several years ago, I wrote about Palin that men used her the way men have always used women — as bit players on a stage set for their success and her failure. I’m afraid Harris, who by most accounts has been sidelined by the president, is beginning to get the picture."

Writes Kathleen Parker, in "Has Kamala Harris been sidelined?" (WaPo).

There are some similarities but also some differences. Sarah Palin was immensely charismatic, a vigorous presence who drew enthusiastic crowds. She needed to be reined in. Kamala Harris has never shown a glimmer of political oomph. Yes, they are both women, and I can see that Kathleen Parker wants to defend women, but part of the defense of women is the avoidance of stereotypes, and though both of these women served the interest of a presidential candidate who wanted credit for picking a female running mate, the details of what they liked about the woman — and what they, later, did not like — are very different.

TO BE FAIR: Parker does say Palin is "very different."

"Think of the other narratives the MSM pushed in recent years that have collapsed. They viciously defamed the Covington boys."

"They authoritatively told us that bounties had been placed on US soldiers in Afghanistan by Putin—and Trump’s denials only made them more certain. They told us that the lab-leak theory of Covid was a conspiracy theory with no evidence behind it at all. (The NYT actually had the story of the leak theory, by Donald McNeil, killed it, and then fired McNeil, their best Covid reporter, after some schoolgirls complained he wasn’t woke.) Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The MSM took the ludicrous story of Jussie Smollett seriously because it fit their nutty 'white supremacy' narrative. They told us that a woman was brutally gang-raped at UVA (invented), that the Pulse mass shooting was driven by homophobia (untrue) and that the Atlanta spa shooter was motivated by anti-Asian bias (no known evidence for that at all). For good measure, they followed up with story after story about white supremacists targeting Asian-Americans, in a new wave of 'hate,' even as the assaults were disproportionately by African Americans and the mentally ill."

So wrote Andrew Sullivan (Substack) in a passage quoted by Jonathan V. Last in "Andrew Sullivan and the Narrative of the 'MSM Narrative'/The narrative on MSM narratives is false" (Bulwark).

Last calls Sullivan's attack "nonsense," his point being that "the MSM universe is so large that you’re always going to be able to cherry-pick examples to support the notion that 'they' are feeding 'us' false narratives." 

And it's easy for Last to dish up the false narratives Sullivan himself has served up: He called "people skeptical of the Iraq War as the 'Hate-America-First crowd,' he asserted "that Barack Obama would put an end to America’s culture wars," he pushed the notion "that Sarah Palin had faked a pregnancy and that 'the media' was complicit in this coverup."

Last writes:

The MSM is like a giant peer-review system, but where the peer-reviewing takes place after publication. Jonathan Rauch talks about this at length in The Constitution of Knowledge—that the scientific enterprise and the journalistic enterprise have similar modes of operation. Is the journalistic mode great? No. Like democracy, it is the worst system there is—except for all the others.