I thought politicians were supposed to have thick skins, but some of them strike me—dare I say—more like sensitive snowflakes.

First, Rep. Devin Nunes sued a Twitter parody account by a fake cow, demanding $250 million for making fun of him. Now, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic presidential candidate, is suing Hillary Clinton for defamation, asking for at least $50 million in damages—a move which mainly served to remind me, "Oh right, she's still in the race."

Represented by Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht partners Brian Dunne and Dan Terzian, Gabbard filed suit in the Southern District of New York on Wednesday. She claims that Clinton—"a cutthroat politician by any account"—smeared her reputation by calling her a "Russian asset" when the former Secretary of State was a guest on the podcast "Campaign HQ With David Plouffe" on October 17, 2019.

Now Clinton didn't actually identify Gabbard by name—she referred to "somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary" who "[they] are grooming…to be the third-party candidate." And then Clinton said, "She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far. And, that's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset. Yeah, she's a Russian asset."

It's worth pointing out that Stein, the 2016 Green Party presidential candidate, responded not with a libel suit, but by counter-attacking in the media. 

In an opinion piece in The Guardian, for example, Stein called the allegations a "ludicrous, unhinged conspiracy theory with no basis in fact ," writing that "the Clinton camp's attempts to shift responsibility for their electoral failure to 'Russian assets' has fueled a new era of McCarthyism."

Now see, that's what I expect from a politician. Good old-fashioned insult trading. 

Gabbard did that too, tweeting that Clinton is the "queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long." But she also took her hurt feelings to court, and hey why not? There's no federal anti-SLAPP statute. 

Plus as the Washington Examiner pointed out, "attacking Clinton is an easy and safe play, especially in Iowa," which holds its caucuses on Feb. 3.

Gabbard asserts that although Clinton didn't name her explicitly, the remarks "indisputably were made about and concerned Tulsi."

When a CNN reporter subsequently asked Clinton's official spokesman, Nick Merrill, whether the statements were about Gabbard, the spokesman responded: "If the nesting doll fits." He continued: "This is not some outlandish claim. This is reality."

The spokesman is not named in the lawsuit.

To hear Dunne (who based on his law firm bio seems primarily to be a patent litigator) tell it, his client "has seen her political and personal reputation smeared and her candidacy intentionally damaged by Clinton's malicious and demonstrably false remarks," he said in an emailed statement.

Clinton "resorted to a damaging whisper campaign founded on lies, and when presented with the opportunity to retract her damaging remarks, she refused. Rep. Gabbard must defend her good name and hold Mrs. Clinton responsible. This lawsuit intends to do just that."

But the complaint in places reads more like campaign material than a tightly crafted legal document. For example, it offers this nugget: "As a child, Tulsi's parents would enlist her and her siblings in 'service days,' where the family would pick up litter from beaches or prepare food for homeless families."

That's nice, but how's it relevant to being called a Russian asset?

Of course, truth is a defense to libel, which opens the possibility of Gabbard having to prove she is not in fact a Russian asset. But somehow I'm guessing this suit will never get that far.