Dean Cain Threatens Lawsuit After Media Smears Him with Outright Lie About Warren Comment
It’s a strange, predictable and inexorable process of the left.
Let’s say, hypothetically, someone on the right says something about, oh, anything. This happens frequently, as human beings are prone to opening their mouths and saying stuff.
There are several ways this something could be taken: charitably, uncharitably or I-didn’t-even-know-that-was-on-the-table badly.
Almost immediately, opinion on Twitter coalesces around the last option. There’s not even any kind of discussion. Pitchforks are lifted. Apologies are demanded.
It doesn’t take long for the outrage to bubble up from social media to traditional media. No one questions the validity of outrage — to do so is to question the marginalized.
The someone who said something tries to explain what they meant. It doesn’t really matter at this point. Perhaps a question mark is inserted into some of the stories: “Could he/she have meant something else?” The subtext is: “Nah, probably not.” If there is an apology or retraction required, it’s done with a whimper, not the bang the initial story generated.
As an example of this phenomenon, I present to you the case of Dean Cain, Ashley Judd and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
It began with a video and Cain, a noted Hollywood conservative, remarking on it. It could end in a lawsuit where Cain takes a tabloid TV show to court.
In case you’ve missed the whole sturm und drang, here’s a catch-up: Last week, the Massachusetts Democrat announced that Judd, one of her presidential campaign’s celebrity endorsers, would be making phone calls on her behalf in a video.
“Hi y’all, I’m Ashley Judd, and I am so proud to support Elizabeth Warren for president of the United States,” Judd said in the video.
“And right now,” she said, “our plan is to make calls to grassroots donors to thank them for chipping in three bucks, five bucks.”
In a tweet sharing the video, Warren uproariously announced: “I’m proud that our campaign is grassroots — built by people, not Super PACs or billionaires.”
Inasmuch as this is true, the time to say it isn’t when you’re tweeting a video where an entitled millionaire is making phone calls on your behalf. Yes, she technically qualifies as “people.” So, indeed, do billionaires.
My friend @AshleyJudd made a few calls to people who chipped in a few dollars to our campaign. I’m proud that our campaign is grassroots—built by people, not Super PACs or billionaires.
Chip in $3 tonight, and Ashley could call you to say thanks! https://t.co/qOzNnVvmg4 pic.twitter.com/2SJOEAGKCp
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 11, 2020
Anyhow, what online trolls noticed wasn’t the curious nature of this argument but instead the fact that the 51-year-old Judd’s face appeared puffy.
I saw this tweet and didn’t think anything of it. Sure, it wasn’t exactly the Judd I remember — but then, I always assume Hollywood types look considerably different when they’re, say, making fundraising calls for quasi-socialist New Englanders than they are when they’re on the red carpet. (Anyone who’s ever seen the frightening apparition of Johnny Depp when caught by the paparazzi can attest to this.)
Trolls being trolls, they were cruel and insinuated that Judd had put on more than a little weight. I may be spoiling future plot developments, but see if you can espy any cruelty in this tweet by Cain, who’s been unambiguous about his disdain for the type of politician that resembles Warren or the type of insulated Hollywood liberal who’d pull a stunt like making fundraising phone calls for her:
I’m not exactly sure what to say here… I certainly have nothing positive to say, so I’ll be quiet. https://t.co/Ee02CQNThz
— Dean Cain (@RealDeanCain) February 12, 2020
“I’m not exactly sure what to say here… I certainly have nothing positive to say, so I’ll be quiet,” Cain tweeted Wednesday, the day after the video was posted.
So, in case you’ve forgotten my observation of how this generally works, here’s how I would chart the three ways this could be viewed:
Charitable: Cain was holding his vitriol while still signaling his disapproval of Warren’s candidacy and Hollywood limousine liberal types.
Uncharitable: Cain was pointing his finger and laughing at Warren’s candidacy — especially its recent flops — and the mistaken belief that celebrity endorsements actually mean anything to candidates on the left these days. (See: Swift, Taylor; Blackburn, Marsha.)
I-didn’t-even-know-that-was-on-the-table bad: Cain was fat-shaming Judd.
Remember: The Warren/Judd video went out Tuesday. Cain’s tweet was fired off early Wednesday.
To show you how quickly this process works, here’s a Marketwatch (a serious publication dedicated to, as its name indicates, watching financial markets and the news that affects them) headline from Thursday, after only 24 hours of digital liberal invective:
“Super mean: Dean Cain slammed on Twitter for seeming to insult Ashley Judd’s puffy face.”
Subheadline: “The actress has blamed swelling on prescribed steroids like prednisone, which millions of Americans take.”
Despite this, Marketwatch acknowledged in the piece that while “Cain did not immediately respond to a MarketWatch request for comment … he later tweeted that he wasn’t insulting Judd’s looks, but rather ‘her candidate and her support for said candidate’s policies.'”
This sounds like a perfectly sensible reading of the situation, but some whiz in the newsroom came up with that room-clearingly deadly “Super mean”/Superman pun playing off Cain’s best-known role, and he or she wasn’t going to let wordsmithery like that go to waste, I guess.
Anyhow, things got even worse — hence the lawsuit threat.
Say what you will about Marketwatch, it has standards. “Inside Edition” never has. I’m kind of amazed the show is still on the air, but there are plenty of people out there who also have no standards, so there you are.
“Inside Edition” tackled the topic in the rubbish manner you might expect, using the pretense of tut-tutting at fat-shaming trolls to engage in fat-shaming itself. But there’s the kicker: Included among the trolls was Dean Cain for a tweet that was ambiguous at worst.
The actor wasn’t about to allow that to stand.
“You presented a story that is nothing short of libelous,” Cain tweeted Saturday. “Never made a reference to anyone’s looks. Was referring to Elizabeth Warren’s inauthentic campaign. You knew this. Issue an apology and an on-air correction, or prepare your lawyers.”
. @InsideEdition You presented a story that is nothing short of libelous. Never made a reference to anyone’s looks. Was referring to Elizabeth Warren’s inauthentic campaign. You knew this. Issue an apology and an on-air correction, or prepare your lawyers. pic.twitter.com/TNjG12uGuY
— Dean Cain (@RealDeanCain) February 15, 2020
Will Cain make the media pay?
I hate to break it to him and his supporters, but the kind of no-standards garbage that’s been on the air since Bill O’Reilly’s “We’ll do it live!” days of hosting it is still on the air because it has awfully good lawyers that know what libel entails and how close to the line you can get without having to pay out a settlement.
Then again, maybe the mere prospect of ending up in court and having its journalistic standards examined might be enough for “Inside Edition” to issue an apology or clarification.
Short of that, Cain might be better off sticking with the comments he made to Billy Bush of “Extra.”
“I made zero comment about Ashley at all,” he said, according to Yahoo Entertainment. “I’m commenting on the inauthentic campaign by Elizabeth Warren, calling this grassroots. Nothing screams authenticity and grassroots like having a millionaire actress make your donor phone calls. It’s ridiculous. It’s actually a perfect irony.”
Cain added: “It says more about them [than] it does about me because I didn’t mention her looks at all.”
It does. Unfortunately, that’s not what the headlines are going to say — all thanks to that strange, inexorable process designed to keep conservatives from opening their mouths as little as possible.
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