As a public figure, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has an awfully high bar to reach in order to successfully sue the leftwing New York Times for malice. A federal judge in the southern district of New York is, however, convinced the case has enough merit to justify the next step. Before deciding on the Times‘ motion to dismiss the case entirely, the judge wants to hear testimony from the editorial writer responsible for smearing Palin.
If you recall, back in June, after a member of the anti-Trump Resistance opened fire on a group of Republican congressman enjoying a baseball practice, on its useless and predictable editorial page, and from completely out of nowhere, the Times launched a broadside against Palin with the claim that her “political rhetoric” had once inspired a terrible mass-shooting in Tucson, Arizona, a bloodbath that almost claimed the life of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2011 massacre, the entire national media-complex spent weeks falsely blaming Palin for the shooting, for something she had absolutely nothing to do with. The smear was fabricated around campaign literature from Palin that included a (then) usual-usual political map that placed targets over certain political districts, including Giffords’. With absolutely no evidence to support this wild claim, the media spent weeks assuring America that this map had motivated the shooter.
The media’s irresponsible conspiracy theory all fell apart when it was discovered that the shooter, Jared Loughner, was an apolitical nutjob who had been obsessed for years with Giffords.
Faced with these inconvenient facts, the media was forced to back down. This included the New York Times, which went so far as to publish pieces debunking the entire idea involving Palin’s responsibility.
Nevertheless, in June, James Bennet, the Times’ editorial page editor, resurrected the lie and now, while under oath, he will have to convince the judge that he was not acting maliciously. What this means is that Bennet will have to convince the court that he was completely unaware of Palin’s innocence. In other words, he will have to claim that he was not only unaware of what the Times had previously published on the issue, he will have to claim that he did not bother to do any research on the subject prior to writing and publishing the false editorial.
Regardless of how the case comes out, if and when Bennet’s testimony is ever publicly released, his answers to these questions — Palin’s lawyer gets 45 minutes to depose the smear merchant — should be as fascinating as it is illuminating.