Arpaio has already won his suit vs. the Times

Joe Arpaio has won ... again.

I don’t believe for a minute that he’ll collect any of the $147.5 million his lawyers are demanding in a lawsuit against the New York Times.

Arpaio is suing the Times and opinion writer Michelle Cottle for a scathing column written after Arpaio lost the GOP Senate primary. The sheriff ’s attorneys say that the column was malicious and false and hurts the sheriff ’s plan to run again for Senate in 2020. Arpaio won’t collect.

But he will win.

He already has.

From the moment I first met Arpaio 30 years ago, it was clear just how wrong members of the media from outside of Arizona misjudged him.

Arpaio was Trump before Trump was Trump.

On the surface, he appears to be interested in political positions like sheriff or senator or governor (which he considered pursuing). But it was never those jobs that he craved, that he absolutely needed.

What Arpaio wanted, and has always wanted, and has always received, is attention.

Same as Trump.

After having been kicked out of the Sheriff’s Office, and then being pardoned of his criminal-contempt charge by President Trump, Arpaio saw a way to remain in the spotlight. He ran for the Senate.

He was able to do that only because of that presidential pardon. It may seem like a person who required a presidential pardon to crawl out from under a criminal-contempt beef is on shaky ground when he says a newspaper columnist sullied his reputation. I mean, without Trump, the former lawman might have been jailed.

Still, Arpaio was bailed out by his friend the president and took a shot at the Senate.

That didn’t work out, but it didn’t lessen the former sheriff ’s craving. Arpaio’s narcissism (a trait shared with his friend Trump) not only damaged the lives of immigrant families and others, but led him on egotistical wild goose chases like investigating the validity of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

The latest wild goose chase is this lawsuit against the Times.

Stunts like this are never about seeking justice or money or anything else. They’re about seeking attention. He’ll get it, again. He’s already gotten it. (And, yes, I know, I’m contributing to that.) But he’ll most likely also get it from Trump, who has an intense hatred for the Times and would be most pleased by Arpaio’s suit. And he’ll get it from Trump’s many media mouthpieces on Fox News.

Lawsuits tend to drag on. By the time this one fizzles out, Arpaio will figure out some other way to draw attention to himself.

And we’ll fall for it.

We always do.