I'm trying to figure out what this Wasilla story, if true, tells us about conservative principles.  Would the alleged Wasilla policy (while Palin was mayor) of charging rape victims for standard forensic testing be an example of the application of such principles, or an aberration, do you think?  (I am asking left and right both.)

AP reports that a McCain/Palin campaign spokesperson said that Palin did not and never had supported charging victims for these tests, but no mention was made of any denial of the story's factual claims.  One of these claims is that the Wasilla police chief when Palin was mayor (whose predecessor she had fired) objected when the state legislature moved to outlaw the practice, which only Wasilla practiced in all of Alaska.  One wonders whether swiftly ending a practice like this, if indeed she did not support it, should count among the "actual responsibilities" that she publicly claimed differentiated the job of Wasilla mayor from that of South Chicago community organizer.

Reporting on this story has been surprisingly scant, given the notorious left-wing bias of the media, but USA Today ran a piece on it and various newspapers have got it from AP--Google "wasilla rape kits" for a survey.  What I actually link below is a very partisan video on YouTube, which further connects both Biden and McCain to the issue.

Personally, I don't see the harm as long as you get a refund plus interest upon acquittal.

I always thought that is was the legislative branch of govenment that passed the laws... ya know, CONGRESS At the national level, STATE LEGISLATURES at the state level, COUNTY COMMISIONERS at the county level.... and (gasp) the city or town council AT THE FRICKIN local level...

MAYBE JUST MAYBE... Laws (which is what that idiot piece of video claims) are not passed by the mayor (EXECUTIVE BRANCH) but by the legislative branch... and maybe on this one, the media found out that the true story was far from this lunatic rant... and they wisely kept their distance after seeing that saying that palin wanted funding for "the bridge to nowhere" when in fact she opposed it... but guess what Obama and our buddy (now where is he) Biden voted for it.... FUCKIN TWICE

The victim can't be acquitted.

soorry, my eyesight realy is going faster than i feared.  mea culpa.

but wouldn't it be more logical to charge the accused?

failed to get his facts straight...

Which is why I question EVERYTHING....  don't really care who says it, but if they spout stuff like "Palin passed a law" while she was Mayor... then that tells me the dweeb failed civics 101.  But hey, what is new...

Rather... "kevin what's the frequency" and they kept that dweeb on.

buttheexecutive signs into law legislation passed in the legislature.  is there anything to indicate that this was passed over a veto, or snuck in as part of some omnibus legislation, the central part[s] of which were too important to lose over the rate kit prposal?

which is why the media is NOT running with this one...

what about some woman who brings a false charge of rape? that's already a criminal offense, I wouldn't mind seeing her charged for the expense.

A lot of this back and forth over Gov Palin, while amusing, just totaly misses the point that it'd Senator Mccain versus Senator Obama, or has that slipped our minds?

I too have wondered what has folk sooooo energized over the VEEP position... I mean after all we could have mr. AMTRAK... runnin the Senate...   but hey... as I posted before... where IS Biden... he should be countering her... and NOT obama... which worries me if he becomes president... would he be distracted by people who are of lesser importance...?

still wonders what that guy was talking about. It makes me laugh to think of Dan Rather getting slapped around by a nut.

Did Dan Rathers Kenneth morph into South Park's Kenny?

Who even claimed she had passed the law?  If by "journalist" and "dweeb" (?) you are referring to the talking head on the video I linked, he explicitly says "she didn't pass the law" (@1:53).

I gather it was a matter of police department policy, not law, initiated (and defended) by the police chief who owed his job in part to Mayor Palin's firing of his predecessor.

The Huffington Post piece linked below argues that she had to have known and approved because the resultant budget savings to the city are clearly shown on a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report that Mayor Palin signed off on, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1999--the first year of the new police policy.  The piece links to both the City of Wasilla's on-line "document central" and to its own copy of the report.  Either way, it is a pdf scanned image of a paper document, unfortunately not a searchable e-text--and Alperin-Sheriff does not supply adequate guidance in locating the specific figures he is using, within the 146-page document (or others, corresponding, for comparison).

-- Modified on 9/14/2008 6:08:19 AM

I raise a question and post a link to a relevant vlog piece; you ignore my question and dismiss the vlogger for supposedly saying something stupid when in fact he explicitly said the exact opposite; I point this out; and now you somehow claim vindication?  That may be "exactly [your] point" now, but it certainly wasn't all along!

Whether Palin actually and individually PASSED A LAW requiring that rape victims be charged for their kits is not the issue according to anyone but you, so far as I can tell.  Such controversy as exists regarding the facts of the case is whether she effectively approved Wasilla police policy and practice in this particular.  The campaign spokesperson denies it; the Huffington Post piece I've linked elsewhere in this thread argues otherwise, with at least some attempt to document its claim.

My question, though, which no one has addressed, is whether such a bill-the-vic policy is good policy per conservative principles?

I live in a California town of 40,000 people and we have aprox 8 rapes a year. How many do you think they have in Wasilla?

How do you even know how many rapes a year you have in your town, Groovy2?  Many victims/survivors do not report, and who can blame them, considering the way they are treated when they do.  Even if the vic does not get billed for her own rape kit (and I notice even the National Review is now calling such a policy "egregious" and "unforgivably stupid"), and even if she steels herself to the inevitable blame-the-victim defense tactics, still if the prosecution fails to meet the enormous burden of proving the case beyond reasonable doubt, then every yahoo and his cousin will be screaming that she is a castrating psycho slut who made it all up for spite.  8 is the tip of the iceberg, bro--and even if it weren't, it is 8 too many.

As to the number in Wasilla, well, I gather that in 2000 Wasilla reported just one in their crime statistics, despite Alaska's having the highest per-capita rape rate in the union.  At the same time, with kits and tests supposedly costing between $300 and $1200 a pop, police chief Fannon reportedly claimed that the policy saved $5000 to $14,000 per year.  (See the 5/23/00 "Frontiersman" story linked below, from Wasilla's own newspaper since 1947.)  Those numbers work out to anywhere between 4 and 46 tests a year.  Go figure.

-- Modified on 9/14/2008 9:22:18 AM

So the point is the state should pay for rape kits?