As expected, the lawsuit brought by Fox News against Al Franken was shot down in flames by a U.S. district judge, who called the suit “wholly without merit, both factually and legally.” You didn’t have to be a legal expert to see that one coming, and one has to wonder was Fox News was smoking when it slapped that particular lawsuit together. “There are hard cases and there are easy cases. This is an easy case,” the judge ruled. He also pointed out the irony of a media company which depends on the First Amendment trying to “undermine it.”

Fox News, which should have simply slunk away with its collective tail between its legs, instead dug themselves even deeper into the stupid hole in front of the judge: “To me, it’s quite ambiguous as to what the message is,” Fox’s lawyer said. “It’s a deadly serious cover … This is much too subtle to be considered a parody.”

Um, yeah. First of all, Al Franken is well-known for not being a satirist, right? Second, so many people would probably think that Fox News is going to call its own people “liars,” and use language like “lies and the lying liars who tell them.” Yeah, that’s way too subtle.

Franken was not ungrateful for the whole situation, obviously: “In addition to thanking my own lawyers, I’d like to thank Fox’s lawyers for filing one of the stupidest briefs I’ve ever seen in my life.”

In the meantime, Franken’s book has been given an increased first printing, and Franken has been invited to be the liberal voice on CNN’s Crossfire show next Monday and Tuesday (that’s Tuesday and Wednesday, 3:30 pm here in Japan). And don’t overlook the aptness of Franken being on CNN, considering its harsh rivalry with Fox News.