Information coming out of the McCain/Palin campaign would like to suggest that as mayor of Wasilla that Sarah Palin ran a tight ship. She demanded loyalty from underlings and knew everything that was going on in her town. Information from both the media in Wasilla and from Palin herself suggests that everyone understood that if you didn’t tow the line, if you didn’t do as the mayor requested, you were out on your ear.
Throughout the media process the Palin camp has been asked to name an executive decision that she made, to show her leadership skills. And other than stories about ordering her National Guard troops which later proved false, the silence has been deafening.
And then, this little piece of news drops into the blogging arena like a rain drop into a bucket. And you can ask yourself about where Sarah Palin was in this executive decision.
The Anchorage Daily News reports that while Sarah Palin was mayor that rape victims were charged for the courtesy of having evidence collected in what are called rape kits. Yeah, you had to pay in Wasilla to have evidence gathered if you had been attacked and violated, anywhere from $300 to $1200 a kit.. Never mind that if a crime is committed it’s considered a crime against the state, not the individual, and thus the government i.e., the municipality where the crime took place, should foot the bill, this practice guaranteed that those without health care, those without money did not receive equal justice under the law. Without a rape kit, chances of catching and prosecuting the rapist were near null.
When state legislators received complaints about this abhorrent practice, they wrote up a bill demanding that the government foot the bill for investigating such crimes. And the Wasilla police chief, Charlie Fannon, whined to the media that such legislation would require the city to come up more money to cover the cost of the kits. The legislature had originally simply asked Wasilla to not charge women and girls for the cost of the investigation into their rapes, but Chief Fannon refused and thus the state had to write a law specifically to handle the situation in Wasilla.
Can you imagine a police chief denying such a request from the state legislature? Can you believe he kept his job after the refusal? Can you imagine a police chief making such a comment about the legislation? Can you believe that he was allowed to keep his job after making such a comment? Can you believe the Alaska state legislature had to write up a law to ask such a thing?
And where was Sarah Palin? According to State Rep. Eric Croft, who sponsored the bill protecting rape victims in Alaska from being assaulted twice, once by the rapist and once by Wasilla city government, he doubted that Sarah even knew about the practice. So much for knowing what’s going on it your town.
Chief Fannon was not fired for the practice. Are we to assume that Chief Fannon, seeing other city employees fired for not being loyal to the mayor, would not have kept her informed that he was billing victims for forensic tests? Where was Mayor Palin?
Chief Fannon was not fired for refusing to comply with the request. Are we to assume he didn’t tell her when he was contacted by the State Representative? Did he not discuss this with the mayor when he chose to say no? And he still kept his job? Where was Mayor Palin?
And when state representatives had to go so far as to write and pass a bill making this practice against the law of government as much as it was already against the law of decency, are we expected to believe once again that Mayor Palin had no clue that such legislation was being enacted?
The situation leaves us with two choices: Either Sarah Palin knew about and condoned the practice, or Sarah Palin had no idea what was going on in her police force, in her town or in her state legislature.
Either way, it doesn’t look good.
rape kits