Humorouz

For visitors who prefer to limit their excursions to paved roads, a loop route that follows portions of U.S. Highways 191, 12, 89, and Interstate 90 provides the perfect itinerary for a leisurely day tour and superb views of the Crazies from all directions. Beginning at Big Timber, take US-191 north for 44 miles to Harlowton and, from there, US-12 west for 59 miles to White Sulphur Springs. Then follow US-89 south for 67 miles to its junction with I-90, and the freeway for 27 miles back to Big Timber. 

This loop can be shortened by approximately 22 miles, if desired, by taking Montana Highway 294 from its junction with US-12, near Martinsdale, west to its terminus at US-89, just north of Ringling. This option brings travelers closer to the Crazies than US-12, which skirts the northern flanks of the Castle Mountains en route to White Sulphur Springs.

Two areas on the segment of US-89 described above warrant further discussion. Junctions with ranch access roads, located near mile marker 31, create unmarked pullouts that afford the rare opportunity to savor panoramic views of three Montana mountain ranges simultaneously: the Crazies to the east, Bridger Mountains to the west, and Absarokas to the south. Points of access to the Shields River Road, which penetrates the west side of the Crazies, and the Bridger Canyon Road (Montana Highway 86), which connects Wilsall and Bozeman, are located just north of Wilsall.

Bridger Canyon Road, a 31-mile-long scenic drive that is fully paved, can be integrated, with modification to the route described above, or traveled as part of a separate, much shorter loop, one that follows US-89 south to Clyde Park and, from there, Brackett Creek Road west to its junction with Montana 86. Bridger Canyon Road provides excellent views of the Bridger Range and, if traversed from west to east, the Crazies. Motorists should be aware, however, that this route’s starting point in Bozeman is somewhat difficult to find. Views are especially picturesque in autumn, when aspens in the Bridger Range become ablaze with color.

The Big Timber Creek Trail, which starts at Half Moon Campground, provides access to this densely concentrated group of lakes. A popular route follows the trail west for 2.8 miles to its junction with the Blue Lake Trail and the latter path for 1.2 miles to its terminus at Blue Lake (8,282 feet), which neighbors Granite and Thunder Lakes. From Blue Lake, Druckmiller and Pear Lakes are inviting off-trail destinations, ones closer to the crest of the Crazies. Another option follows Big Timber Creek Trail for 4.2 miles to Twin Lakes and, if desired, another 3.4 miles to Glacier Lake, from which the Sweet Grass Trail takes hikers to points farther north in the Crazies.

The grandeur and rugged topography of this mountain range are self-evident. However, first-time visitors should approach the Crazies with great respect, both for the weather that they generate and the spiritual power with which they are imbued by the Creator. Indeed, the Apsáalooke (Crow) name for this range is Awaxaawippiia, which translates roughly as Treacherous or Ominous Mountains, in recognition of the harsh weather conditions frequently encountered there. Although Crow males commonly underwent vision quests in the Bighorn and Pryor Mountains, Burton Pretty on Top, Sr., states unequivocally that “The Crazy Mountains has always been the holiest of all the Mountains used by our people for fasting and vision quests.” In the pre-reservation period, the Crows also regarded the Crazies as a tribal sanctuary. According to Pretty on Top, “In times of attacks from other tribes that outnumbered us, we would run back to Awa xa ipia for protection. Once we entered into those canyons, the enemy would retreat and leave because they knew this Mountain was our sacred protector.”

Renowned Crow warriors and chiefs, including Medicine Crow and Plenty Coups, received powerful dreams and even prophetic visions during quests undertaken in the Crazies. As a nine-year-old boy, on Crazy Peak, Plenty Coups experienced a vision that provided a template for Crow foreign policy during their turbulent transition from an autonomous people to reservation life. Plenty Coups’ vision foretold the disappearance of bison from the High Plains. In his dream, he also witnessed the destruction of a vast forest, except for one tree inhabited by a chickadee. Yellow Bear, a Crow elder, informed Plenty Coups that the Four Winds, which laid waste to the forest, symbolized the encroaching tide of Euroamerican expansion, and the felled trees represented tribes that fought against the white man. Conversely, Yellow Bear interpreted the “Chickadee’s lodge in that standing tree [as a symbol of the lodges of the Crow nation] pitched in the safety of peaceful relations with white men.” The enduring truth of that vision informed tribal policy for years to come.

Given the strong spiritual and historical connection between the Apsáalooke people and the Crazy Mountains, hikers and backpackers who explore these craggy peaks would be wise to keep one final thought in mind. Should you come across an oval- or U-shaped archeological feature, one consisting of stacked rock walls, approximately four feet long, two feet wide, and one to two feet in height, with an opening to the east, you may be standing on sacred ground, a site consecrated by fasting, prayer and, perhaps, even autosacrifice. In that event, enjoy the spectacular views of the high country but do not disturb the integrity of this vision-quest structure.

Former President Donald Trump is not a Nazi. He is not, nor has it been reported that he has ever been, a member of the National Socialist Party. He also is not, in fact, some sort of genetic copy of Adolf Hitler. To misappropriate Dickens: “This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.”

You see, Trump’s lawyers sued CNN alleging defamation in a Florida federal court Monday. The main focus of their ire? In reporting on their client’s ongoing lies about the 2020 election, CNN has made use of “persistent association of the Plaintiff to Adolf Hitler and Nazism.”

“When a public official, or political candidate, is likened to Hitler, it is defamation per se as the statement imputes a characteristic or condition incompatible with the proper exercise of that public office,” the filing argues. “CNN published these defamatory statements with actual malice in that they knew the association of the Plaintiff’s character with that of Hitler was false, defamatory, and inflammatory or they published the statements with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity.”

While filing a litany of grievances masquerading as a lawsuit may satisfy Trump’s need for revenge, it feels like a grave mistake here. In asking the court to say definitively that it is unfair to compare Trump to Hitler, he has opened the door for the courts to reach the opposite conclusion.

In asking the court to say definitively that it is unfair to compare Trump to Hitler, he has opened the door for the courts to reach the opposite conclusion.

But before we deal with that likelihood, let us first address the claims and arguments that Trump has forced his lawyers to sign their names to. First, the suit lists five instances when CNN aired comparisons between Trumpism and Nazism. Three were from when Trump was president, a public figure for whom the bar for defamation is extremely high. Those three were 2019 interviews with public figures who made the comparison, including House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C.; singer Linda Ronstadt; and a psychiatrist whose hyperbole was — as the suit gleefully notes — rated “Pants on Fire” by PolitiFact.

Second, the filing argues that CNN’s use of the term the “Big Lie” is itself defamatory. Trump’s lawyers rightly note that the phrase is associated with Hitler. (Its origin is an apocryphal quote attributed to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”) In this context, it refers to Trump’s (ongoing) insistence that President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 was the result of massive fraud and his demands that the election results be cast out.

That CNN would dare use such a phrase is outrageous, the suit alleges, as it has “not used it against other political leaders and previously criticized political analogies to Nazi Germany and to Hitler.” (A brief aside: They are so close to understanding the truth of the matter even as they argue the opposite.)

Ginni Thomas proves Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ lives on

All told, Trump’s lawyers say they provided CNN with five examples of the term that should be retracted. That includes an opinion essay from Ruth Ben-Ghiat (who also writes for MSNBC) that argued the “Big Lie” was only possible because of Trump “unleashing a barrage of disinformation common in authoritarian states but without precedent in the history of the American presidency.” It also names three articles by CNN political analyst and blogger Chris Cillizza and a CNN broadcast where host Jake Tapper called out Trump’s “deranged election lies.”

(Another brief aside: The suit refers to Cillizza by his official title, rendered as “CNN Editor-at-Large” as though this grants him some special sort of power over a network’s coverage. It does not.)

This suit, Trump’s lawyers say, was made necessary because CNN refused to retract its claims. But as CNN made clear in its response letter to Trump’s lawyers, at no point did the former president’s team bother to get into why the network’s anchors, analysts and columnists were willing to say that Trump was lying. Answer: Because he was lying and any attempt to counter that in court by putting those lies into a filing could have consequences for the lawyers who submit them.

Which brings us to the suit’s final argument: that CNN has allowed Democrats to doubt the validity of election results, especially after Trump’s win in 2016, without getting the “Big Lie” label, showing CNN’s political bias. The difference here, as I’ve noted before, is that when the Russia investigation concluded, Democrats stopped making wild claims that the facts couldn’t bear out. Speculation when evidence is lacking is not the same as continuing to repeat the same claims once there’s proof that they aren’t true.

The weakness of their case isn’t helped by the fact that legal precedent is not on their side — the filing’s footnotes only cite 11 cases total. Five of them are cited in regard to filing in a Florida court; one is a defamation case that the plaintiffs lost; three of them are state-level cases from between 1946 and 1961 that deal with the defendant comparing someone to Hitler or the Nazis.

There are no recent cases among those Trump’s lawyers cited that deal with a media outlet harming a public figure’s political future, as Trump’s lawyers are arguing CNN has done. Given the rather large number of examples where media reporting has tanked a political candidate, you’d think these legal eagles would have something to quote in their favor beyond a single CNN employee bragging during a secretly taped conversation.

All told, this is less a case of defamation and more a case of crying “they were mean to me.”

Instead, Trump’s lawyers insist that the court ignore the “actual malice” precedent that the Supreme Court set in New York Times Company v. Sullivan in 1964. Not because actual malice wasn’t present, they argue, but because “that standard does not—and should not—apply where the media defendant is not publishing statements to foster debate, critical thinking, or the ‘unfettered interchange of ideas’ but rather seeks to participate in the political arena by offering propaganda.”

It’s ironic that they will have a harder time making such a case given recent precedent in a case brought against Fox News. A federal judge in 2020 ruled that Fox host Tucker Carlson and the network that airs him hadn’t engaged in slander because of the opinionated nature of his show. Many of the examples that Trump’s lawyer cite in the filing are either outright opinion or clearly labeled analysis based on things Trump himself actually did.

All told, this is less a case of defamation and more a case of crying “they were mean to me.” It will not gain Trump the $475 million in damages he is seeking from CNN. And it has proved a window for people like me to remind Americans that Donald Trump does not want to have to prove in court that he’s not a threat to democracy.

While it would be extremely entertaining to see Trump’s lawyers try to convince a jury that their client and his actions have no comparison with the Nazis’ rise to power, the odds that it gets thrown out like his suit against Hillary Clinton was in September are extremely high. And while I had fun reading through this train wreck of an argument, it wasn’t even the best pastiche of legal writing that I’ve read this week: The Onion did it better.