A New York Times editorial that Sarah Palin said linked her to a 2011 mass shooting was intended to communicate that the incident was a product of a charged political atmosphere, not that it was caused directly by the former Alaska governor’s rhetoric, the editor of the Times’ editorial page said on Wednesday.
James Bennet, who served as editor-in-chief of The Atlantic for a decade before joining the Times last year, said during testimony in a hearing for Palin’s defamation suit against the Times that he wrote the final version of a June 14 editorial called “America’s Lethal Politics,” which Palin said in a defamation complaint tied her to the mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, that resulted in six deaths and the wounding of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona.
