NY Times Doubles Down on Stupid

Yesterday we noted the New York Times‘s repulsive and contemptible editorial repeating the leftist talking point that somehow Sarah Palin was indirectly responsible for the 2011 shooting of Gabby Giffords:

In 2011, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl. At the time, we and others were sharply critical of the heated political rhetoric on the right. Before the shooting, Sarah Palin’s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs.

As you’ll remember, the Times offered this correction:

But this is disingenuous, as it leaves open the idea that there might still be an undiscovered or unproven link somewhere that would “establish” this talking point.

Today, the Times has issued a further correction:

The Times apparently never heard of Healey’s First Law of Holes: If you’re in one, stop digging. They should do the right thing and withdraw the entire editorial. There is talk that Sarah Palin might sue the Times, since its actual malice in the editorial might satisfy even the very tough Sullivan standards for libel of a public figure. James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal thinks this correction may have been prompted by the advice of counsel.

Chaser: Somewhere in the last 24 hours I saw a Tweet (I forgot now from whom) that “If you’d told me five years ago that Donald Trump would be president and Sarah Palin would own the New York Times, I wouldn’t have believed you.” Make it so!

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses