This was inevitable:
A federal judge has tossed out Sarah Palin’s lawsuit against the newspaper for claiming in an editorial that her political action committee was connected to the murderous 2011 rampage of Jared Lee Loughner near Tucson, Ariz. “Negligence this may be; but defamation of a public figure it plainly is not,” wrote Judge Jed S. Rakoff in Tuesday’s ruling.
I hope she had to pay out of pocket for her lawyers.
craigie
Hahahahaha. Right, like that happened.
Jerzy Russian
Christ, what an asshole (the former half-term governor of Alaska, that is).
Villago Delenda Est
When one auto-defames every time one opens one’s pie hole, this sort of result is inevitable. It’s like claiming character assassination when one has no character to begin with.
Lavocat
To defame one’s character, one first has to have character.
clay
Who?
Oh, I remember her now. She liked to say that Obama would have death panels that would kill off old people.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
mouse tolliver
With search and rescue still underway, Trump has his second photo-op of the day. Don’t they have actual work to do right now instead thanking each other and talking about eliminating regulations?
Brachiator
Wow. I remember when I thought that Sarah Palin was maybe the dumbest Republican ever to be part of a presidential ticket.
Sigh. Good times.
Served
There have been so many mass shootings, I had to look up this one up to remember which one it was.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Damn, somebody fell out of the limelight mighty hard…
MJS
How toxic do you have to be for even Trump to keep his distance from you? Except for the White House photo with Kid Rock, Sarah’s been persona non grata. Sad!
p.a.
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): show on plucking, cleaning, cooking eagles in development on RusTV
dmsilev
@MJS: Wrong question. Trump doesn’t care about toxic, but he hates people who try to hog the limelight. That’s _his_ prerogative.
scav
O! I love the placement of that plainly.
(Sheer gilding, as I already adored the plainly.)
J R in WV
Well, this is interesting.
Lady Palin, Sarah, put out literature with telescopic sights imposed over Gabby Gifford’s photo. Next thing you see is Gabby, her staff, and her constituents being shot down like deadly rabid wildlife in a parking lot by a crazed Republican psychotic.
Amazing that Congresswoman Giffords, who represented the district where we have built a winter residence, survived at all. Let alone regaining the ability to speak well before crowds and to lobby for humanity.
She is a real hero, as is her husband, Astronaut and Navy aviator and Captain Mark Kelly. I hope they both are happy together, if any couple ever deserved happiness they do!
Also, this thread has two comment numbers for every comment, and is otherwise quite odd looking. Probably a style component dropped a bit and became unintelligible to the HTML or CSS engines.
Iowa Old Lady
@dmsilev: Nah, she’s too old, so he doesn’t even see her.
Spaniel
@Brachiator:
Too funny.
Patricia Kayden
@Lavocat: True. Still can’t get over the fact that McCain thought she was qualified to be VP. But look at who they put into the White House. Sigh.
ruemara
There’s no way an entitled right winger will ever shut up. And that goes double for after they lose.
different-church-lady
@clay:
Dress Rehersal Trump
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
In 2008 who imagined the problem with Palin was that she wasn’t crazy enough?
danielx
I’d like to think we have heard the last from Snowbilly Snookie, but Republicans are big on second chances for idiot pols.
Iowa Old Lady
@different-church-lady: It took way too long for Palin to fade out of the media.
piratedan
@J R in WV: well JR, those were surveyor symbols dontcha know….
and tbh… Loughner was never proven to have any GOP ties or leanings per se… but he lived in an environment of hateful AM radio and a place where Giffords offices were vandalized post her ACA vote.
I find it somewhat ironic that so many GOP folks demanded that her seat be put up for a special election while she was still trying to fight her way back and yet nary a peep when we see the diminished mental status of the current President. Almost makes me think that they’re somewhat partisan.
TriassicSands
Republicans will insert a line in the Harvey disaster relief bill to pay for her legal expenses. After all, after McCain made here famous (some would say infamous) she really seemed to focus on making herself as rich as possible by moving her small town grift to the big time. Republicans have an obligation to make sure that she remains as rich as possible — otherwise there won’t be any jobs in Amurka!
chopper
@Villago Delenda Est:
auto-defame? what’s an auto-defame?
it’s what you oughtn’t to do but you do anyway
Patricia Kayden
@different-church-lady: She’s plenty crazy. She and McCain just couldn’t beat President Obama. Unfortunately, Secretary Clinton lost a lot of Obama voters which partially explains why she lost. 30 + years of being demonized badly hurt her.
grillo
@chopper:
It’s from that song in Candide
What a dame, what a dame
for an auto-defame!
Bobby Thomson
This isn’t exactly a free press victory. It was based on the Times caving and “correcting” their editorial.
James Powell
@ruemara:
Right-wingers always speak as if they are unfairly aggrieved. They are always “the real victims” and losing a battle with the Forces of Evil – in this case the America hating liberal media – fits their narrative and feeds their sense of oppression.
cynthia ackerman
@chopper:
Has something to do with the Spanish Inquisition.
quakerinabasement
Which newspapers do you plan to sue next, Gov.?
“All of them, Katie.”