Read these four pages.⇓⇓ A mere four pages with four or five laughs per page. It’s the dismissal of Trump’s complaint against the New York Times.
The Honorable Steven D. Merryday, appointed to the federal bench by Bush I, is more than Honorable: he is intelligent, literate, witty, funny and a terrific — if, in this instance, incredulously contemptuous — teacher of basic rules of law. I mean, One-L, that level.
It’s hard to describe his decision to dismiss Trump’s defamation case against the New York Times as anything but a takedown, specifically of Trump’s lawyers who wrote that thing that was filed. (The lawyer cited [and sneered at] for the complaint.)
The judge’s written decision reinforces my perception that the so-called division in this country was initiated and electrically charged by mediocrities and failures who, like Trump, didn’t get into the “right places” — whatever they thought the “right places” were — and harbor rage over the rejections. Or they got into the “right places” but think they weren’t treated properly.
Just now, as I wrote that last sentence, I remembered an unpleasant incident with a friend, many years ago. She was a colorful character, quite beautiful, voluble and volatile, and from another New York culture different from mine.
After meeting her, my sister remarked, “That is one hostile chick.” She was? I hadn’t noticed. Then I did. I also had to notice her drinking. Didn’t know what alcoholism was back then, but that’s what it was. And when she drank, she was nasty.
Years passed; she got married to an indolent, seductive man who hit her; she moved out of the city, she moved back, we reconnected. I became aware of what my sister had said, the anger — openly expressed and generally not particularly rational. She had trouble holding jobs; her angry attitude was self-sabotaging.
A few more years passed. Stuff happened. One night she called me and ranted about something or other that was happening to her. I edged into closing the conversation. Her last remark to me, dripping vitriol, was, “The problem with you is, you’ve never had anything bad happen to you in your life!”
I’ve had plenty bad happen to me in my life, and she knew that. But someone I haven’t nurtured whatever bad happened to me, I don’t feed it and stir the pot.
But the Trump people aren’t like me. They are still seething with the rage they felt decades ago when they were ignored, rejected or not bowed to for being the smartest guys in the room. And their endless odyssey is to seek someone else to blame.
Oh, never mind that. Just read the decision and enjoy yourself.