Yes, sort of disappointing, but cowardice and hypocrisy proved

In a Washington Post piece about the Dominion settlement of its claim against Fox News, this is the part that is most shameful:

Perhaps as much as anything, the case reflected the control Trump has over the conservative movement, given the fear Fox demonstrated of what Trump could do to it — a fear that echoes the broader Republican Party’s posture toward Trump.

As has been clear for a long time, a majority of Republicans in government know that Trump is a narcissistic idiot, but refuse to say the truth because his "base" don't want to hear that their cult leader has no clothes.   He's their useful idiot, and three or four decades of letting conservative commentators ramp up the demagoguery of Democrats means they've willingly created a populist monster they can't control - and won't even try to control. 

They prefer power over principle, as does Rupert and his God awful minions, who also have greed as their motivation.

And even though Fox might lose another billion or so dollars...: 

Fox still has to contend with a similar lawsuit from another voting technology company, Smartmatic. The company was often lumped in with Dominion while the false claims were made on Fox, and in some cases the claims against Smartmatic arguably went further.

...the company can, unfortunately, afford it:

Fox, which owns the nation’s leading cable news outlet, had $4 billion in cash in its last financial filing, meaning it would seem to be able to cover such a large payout. But it’s a huge blow to the bottom line.

You can bet that this action will not make any difference to the on air conduct of the network's key "stars", and democracy in America will continue to be under threat from their poisonous tide of commentary.

Update:   Ed Morrissey at Hot Air admits that Fox must have anticipated a big loss, but what a mealy mouth conclusion about "stop the steal":

The amount of this settlement really does look like an admission that Fox new it was going to lose and lose big at trial. This is almost half of what Dominion sought from the lawsuit, after all. Fox clearly calculated their risk as higher than the settlement amount.

With that in mind, what does this say about the “stop the steal” argument? It certainly makes it look false, at a minimum. That may well have some impact on the GOP nomination fight going forward.

 Still can't bring himself to say it is a flat out conspiracy?  Coward.