What does the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal look like? It looks like the Murdochs have decided to double down on another defamation suit.
Two months ago, the WSJ breathlessly reported that Donald Trump had signed a typed birthday greeting to sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. The signature sat below the typed text and a suggestive drawing that resembled a naked woman, with his signature doubling as pubic hair. Trump denied it and warned the Murdochs not to publish it, but they did anyway, and Trump threatened a massive lawsuit in response.
Well, get the lawyers ready:
I screencapped this earlier in the morning for a reason. They later took this image and the headline down, as I imagined they would, and instead replaced it with a scribble from someone else’s birthday card. The headline got changed to another article, “See More Pages From Epstein’s 50th Birthday Book.” The original headline remains accessible, however.
Is this legit? Is it fake? Was it a joke by someone else 22 years ago about Trump? Who knows? As I wrote two months ago, though, this doesn’t add up. It’s difficult to imagine Trump putting this much effort into a birthday greeting for anyone, let alone a casual acquaintance in the Manhattan social scene. It’s also very difficult to imagine someone as brand-conscious as Trump using his own signature as a stand-in for pubic hair. And as Trump told the WSJ at the time, the dialogue in the letter sounds nothing like him at all, and reads more as a joke about him by someone not entirely enamored with the Donald Trump Experience.
But even if Trump did send this … it’s still not news, let alone Front Page Center Column 48 Point Headline news. Trump has acknowledged socializing with Epstein in that period, and even a bit beyond, but claims to have ended his contacts before Epstein’s first arrest in 2007. A birthday greeting in 2003 is hardly a rebuttal to that explanation, even if it were legitimate. This ribald birthday card has nothing to do with Epstein’s crimes either. It tells us nothing about Trump that we didn’t already know, including his tendency to be crude at times, and that’s only if this actually came from Trump in the first place.
The Wall Street Journal isn’t running this for its news value, because it has none. It’s running it for its virtue-signaling value, as a means to express independence and distance from Trump and the administration, as well as for its titillation value. One would think that the Murdochs’ endless coverage of OnlyFans models at the New York Post would satisfy those urges, but apparently, they want to ensure brand consistency across all platforms.
To quote Dan Wasserman, I’ve seen enough. I’m flagging my subscription to end its auto-renewal status after many years of readership. I thought they were better than this, and at one time, they were. Their descent is sad to see, all the more so because it is entirely unnecessary. Your older version will be missed, but this WSJ is entirely indistinguishable from the rest of the Protection Racket Media. Adios, muchachos. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
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