Friday, September 12, 2008

I bet it's the victim's fault too...

USA Today, in a story about how, while Sarah Palin was mayor of the town, Wasilla billed rape victims for needed evidence-gathering medical examinations.

Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella said in an e-mail that the governor "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test."

"Gov. Palin's position could not be more clear," she said. "To suggest otherwise is a deliberate misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice."

Of course, the problem is that whether she "believed" in it or not, the Wasilla policy when she was mayor was to bill rape victims between $500 and $1200 for the needed exams. Some members of the Alaska state legislature were appropriately mortified, and the state passed a law forbidding it -- and they had Wasilla directly in mind when the law was proposed. There's been absolutely no question about any of that. Given that it gained the attention of the state legislature, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that Mayor Sarah Palin didn't know about the policy that even her own state government was decrying. (Especially considering that it seems the policy was instituted on her watch.)

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