Strange Things Are Afoot At Morning Joe ▉

John Marshall, Talking Points Memo, writing about David Frum’s article in The Atlantic:

Let’s focus specifically on what David said. He was talking about drinking.

Defamation law is a curious thing. The ins and outs of it aren’t as predictable as you might think. There is pretty clear case law, for instance, which holds that calling someone a “Nazi” cannot be defamatory. It’s like calling someone a “big dummy head.” It’s just an opinion. By definition it can’t be defamatory.

Needless to say, I’m not a lawyer. And I’m definitely not YOUR lawyer. But I’m not pulling this stuff out of my hat. In my job I’ve had to work closely with very experienced First Amendment lawyers for many years. Accusing someone of being a drunk isn’t just different in the sense that it is a factual issue — it’s true or it’s not. It’s also something that can be professionally damaging. That elevates it in terms of reputational damage, which is what defamation and libel law are about. Someone with a reputation as an alcoholic might easily not get hired for jobs because they’re viewed as unreliable. It’s not just a matter of hurt feelings. The potential damage is tangible, even quantifiable.

The point is that defamation law isn’t always linear and commonsensical. Some things you’d think would be no-nos are fine and others that seem like locker room banter can be big no-nos.

Needless to say, under Sullivan this shouldn’t matter. Hegseth is a textbook public figure. The speech is in a clearly political context in which the First Amendment protections are strongest. And there’s lots of reporting on which David could base that remark.

I’m not a lawyer either but this tracks to me. If word gets out that someone’s a drunk and unhireable and it’s false that’s a problem. Even if it’s true, it’s still kind of a problem because it may not be apparent. Addicts are very good at hiding these things.

I was about to jump on Marshall until he pointed out that, really, there’s tons of reporting for Frum to base his remark. This isn’t some rumor, there are multiple sources for this. It’s all over cable news.

But it’s what Marshall says next that intrigues me. What I take as pure capitulation to Trump might not be that far off. It’s weird and frankly if those who know better than me say it’s weird, it’s fucking weird.

The point of going into all of this is that Trump specifically and the MAGA world generally has been putting everyone on notice for years that they’re going to flood the zone with lawsuits. So watch out, basically. And now with Trump coming back in, the assumption is that the threat jumps up dramatically.

So on first blush, this seems like hyper-caution over potential lawsuits. But there are a couple problems with that theory. The first is that MSNBC — or its now spun-off parent company — aren’t some tiny operation that could be sunk by a lawsuit. Perhaps Sullivan isn’t long for this world. But for now it’s the law. And it should make any potential suit manageable for a company of that size. But then there’s also the specific apology from Brzezinski. It seemed to be directed not at Hegseth but rather at Fox News. Here’s the relevant part.

The comment was a little too flippant for this moment that we’re in. We just want to make that comment as well. We want to make that clear. We have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that’s a good debate that we should have often, but right now I just want to say there’s a lot of good people who work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we will want to leave it at that.

Is Fox going to sue the show? Are they going to get into a morning ratings war with them? It’s weird isn’t it? You would have expected some comment like saying “we don’t know whether these allegations are true,” etc. But unless I’m missing something, this seems like wanting to keep the peace with Fox News — “a lot of good people who work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth.”

I can’t really decode that at all. Not legally, or politically or journalistically.

Marshall raises the best point yet: MSNBC isn’t some low rent cable news channel like Newsmax or OAN. They have plenty of money and can withstand a potential lawsuit or or two. Again, this isn’t some rumor or something baseless that MSNBC is spewing that nobody else is talking about. Everyone is talking about it. We’re talking about someone up for Secretary of Defense and who quite literally, unless Trump pulls some authoritarian bullshit, is about to go through rigorous Senate hearings and all of this is going to come out anyway. So it’s not like this is the aforementioned defamation situation. I mean it’s sort of swipe at Fox in general but does this really rise to the level of defamation? For an entire organization?

Like Marshall, other than fear and capitulation to the Orange One, I got nothin. This is just fucking weird.

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