The judge in the case was never an academic. He is a former attorney appointed to the bench by President Bush.
The jury watched Chris Kyle’s deposition, where he admitted that several parts of the account were false. They saw him admit that he tried to remove the story from the book after a friend warned him if it wasn’t true he could be sued. They saw him admit that he agreed to leave it in only if Ventura wasn’t named.
They saw emails from Kyle to the publisher expressing concern that Ventura’s name had been leaked and asking them to ask interviewers not to bring up the incident.
They saw Kyle in his deposition admit that he sent those emails because he was afraid he would be sued.
They heard his widow testify that his repeated claims that all proceeds from the book would be donated to veterans charities and his claims that the book had already raised significant funds were not true.
They saw the witnesses Kyle’s lawyers put on wildly disagree with each other and with Kyle’s account, and from that they concluded that what Kyle said was false.
Bush made a lot of bad appointments….most of them in fact.
And none of what you say changes the fact that this did not impact Ventura one bit, and it’s despicable to sue this family under these circumstances. The very fact that Ventura sued demonstrates it was all about the money to him, because all of this attention to the book, not to mention how loathsome of a creature Jesse is, will hurt his reputation a thousand times more than whatever was said in the book.
Then again, he may not be smart enough to figure that out. Are you?