War & Peace Quote by Floyd Abrams

Abrams is doing what great litigators do outside the courtroom: reframing a loss as a principle that still deserves to win. The conditional opening - "Were this not Texas" - is a polite scalpel. It points to forum as fate, suggesting the outcome turned less on the merits than on geography: Texas as shorthand for weak legal protections and a plaintiff-friendly path. He is arguing that the case wasn’t simply lost; it was structurally disadvantaged.

The naming is strategic and human. "CBS and Mary Mapes and Dan Rather" anchors the abstract in recognizable targets from the early-2000s media firestorm around the "60 Minutes" National Guard story, when questions about documents metastasized into a referendum on journalistic legitimacy. By listing individuals alongside the corporation, Abrams spreads the stakes: this is not just a network defending itself, but journalists defending the conditions that let journalism exist.

The phrase "the law was clear on that" quietly indicts the clarity itself. Abrams isn’t lamenting ambiguity; he’s lamenting certainty that cuts the wrong way - a jurisdiction where protections are "not at all", implying a hostile environment for press defendants (and, by extension, for aggressive reporting).

Then comes the rhetorical pivot: "ongoing battle" and "issue of principle". That’s not consolation; it’s insulation. Abrams is signaling to allies, donors, and future courts that the reputational and constitutional questions outlive a single venue. Subtext: today’s defeat is tomorrow’s precedent unless it’s challenged, and the press can’t afford to treat Texas rules as a local quirk when national newsrooms operate everywhere.