JOHN SEXTON: Down the Rabbit Hole: Paul Krugman’s role in the Sarah Palin libel trial (and mine).

I’m not sure what Douthat was reading in 2017 but the “rabbit hole” about the other, similar maps probably traces back to me and that 2010 blog post above. The specific map he’s referring to is the DCCC map above.

In any case, Douthat was correct that the main takeaway here is that there never was a connection between Palin and the shooting. Krugman’s efforts to create one were nevertheless “vivid” for a lot of people on the left. One of those people, it seems, was James Bennet who must have had some memory of Krugman, or someone echoing him, pointing to the map as an incitement before the facts showed otherwise. Somehow, Bennet, and his colleagues who reviewed his draft, never got the message that Krugman was wrong.

Read the whole thing.