Sarah Palin has a valid case

You might say I have mixed emotions about Sarah Palin’s libel lawsuit against The New York Times over its linking her public comments and online postings to a 2011 mass shooting near Phoenix, Arizona.

Palin’s postings included photographs of eight members of Congress who voted for President Barack Obama’s health care bill. The photographs had crosshairs superimposed on their photographs suggesting that they were targets because of their votes.

She presumably meant to suggest that the eight members of Congress were political targets, but one reader took it literally. Shortly after the crosshair photos were published, Arizona man Jared Lee Loughner showed up at a rally for Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and pulled a pistol from his pocket.

He shot Giffords in the face, wounding her. The shot caused brain injury that caused her to retire from politics. He then shot and killed five other people and wounded another dozen. The dead included a federal district court judge, a congressional staffer and a nine-year-old girl.

The New York Times issued a correction after the link to Palin was published and for that it deserves credit, but the damage by then was already done. The link had been made in the minds of many in the newspaper’s worldwide audience and those things just don’t go away.

I have been a newspaper writer, both a reporter and in recent years a columnist, for much of my working life. For that reason I sympathize with The Times to a certain extent, but my sympathy is limited. It seems to me that The New York Times owes Alaska’s former governor for its hurtful mistake. It should be making her a settlement offer to make her go away.

My mixed emotions relate to the fact that I have never been sued for anything I have written and am knocking on wood that it never happens. (The wood is my forehead but that is another story.)

Palin’s lawsuit tends to refresh everybody’s memory of what she said that day and that gives her comments about The Times continuing impact. But that is not entirely a negative since it reminds people that our former governor is an interesting character, to say the least.

Through the years she has caused many of her own problems but she has gotten her points across. And the lawsuit reminds people that Palin is a uniquely Alaskan character who has not lost her ability to get headlines.

It would be unreasonable to expect that Palin would remain silent since the issue that drew her fire is still before the public. And it gladdens many hearts to see her effectively blasting away again at those who have raised her ire.

The case has also fired up those who would like to repeal the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees Americans the right to keep and bear arms. Hopefully that effort will go nowhere but such talk always makes many Alaskans nervous.

There are already many limits on an individual’s right to bear arms. For instance it is illegal to walk into a bank or a grocery store carrying your favorite M16. That is just common sense but we don’t rely on that to keep people from making such transgressions. Rules against such display of weaponry are prominently posted in many businesses. Those who break such rules can generally count on having one or more police officers approaching them in short order.

Living in American society requires a certain level of thoughtful and cautious behavior. You have to go along in order to get along.

Let’s hope The New York Times has the good sense to make Sarah Palin a reasonable offer.

Tom Brennan is an Anchorage columnist and author of six books. He was a reporter/columnist for The Anchorage Times and an editor and columnist at The Voice of The Times.

** Editor's note: The original version included that Giffords was killed. The wrong information has been corrected.