Permit me to demonstrate, fairly succinctly, why it was not a very good idea for Donald Trump to threaten to sue the Club for Growth for libel over its new attack ad ‘Politician.’ To wit: in order for us to discuss that, first you gotta see the ad. Well, I guess that some people don’t feel the need to see the ad, but the rest of us do. That entire ‘informed citizens of the Republic’ bit, you see:

I’ll let Allahpundit over at Hot Air go into the weeds as to why it’s actually fair to at least argue that Donald Trump still supports higher taxes; that’s not my point. My point here is that, absent this lawsuit, that ad probably wouldn’t have made the front page of RedState. It would still have made it up on the airwaves – the Club for Growth is spending a million bucks to make sure that it and another anti-Trump ad plays in Iowa – but as an attack ad it’s not really news. But apparently that ad stung, and the reaction of the person getting stung made it news.

Honestly, the Club for Growth is probably loving this. They’re already trying to goad Donald Trump into pushing this quarrel. One hesitates to say that ‘no judge will do X’ – judges do some dumb things, sometimes – but if the above qualifies as libel then a lot of people (including many people that you might like, and/or me) are going to get sued. Starting with the President of the United States, which largely ends the discussion right there.

One last thought: since it’s a primary and people complain when I comment on primaries, I would like to avoid taking sides.  However, the following is a truism in my line of work:

• The Left always wants the Right to shut up.
• The Right always wants the Left to keep talking.

I assume somebody has explained this to Donald Trump?

Moe Lane (crosspost)