She drew fire by being edgy and frankly spiteful, deploying the usual liberal tactic of iconoclasm. The left thought she'd erred badly, and that they had her cornered, and proceeded to try to play the boo-hoo card. It fell flat, and succeeded mostly in impressing in the minds of the viewers and listeners..."Gosh, did we really give them all that money? Was it some sort of Widow Lotto?"
And, you know what you were saying aout her fading looks? Saw her on H+C last night, and she looked smashing, even considering her grueling book tour. Loaded for bear and jeering at the fossils.
$2m for loss of a wage earner isn't particularly munificent by the standards of contemporary damage awards, particularly if the wage-earner was white collar and earning a six-figure salary.