Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Sarah Palin for VP!

Umm, did you actually read my post? I said:

I won't press the issue of "one accomplishment" further.

I'm not surprised. You don't strike me as the type to trawl through the left blogosphere much. Or at all.


alcyone

I do occasionally read DU and DK just to find out what the other side is saying. These days I've been going through the HillaryClintonForum and finding it amusing what those people think. I don't do it that frequently, so I must have missed those references to ABC News. You may be surprised that I don't read any conservative blogs. I find it funny when you say I'm spewing things straight out of the conservative blogs that I've never read. LOL

My favorite political links are to Fox News, since I can't get any real news from anywhere else <g>, RealClearPolitics, and opinionjournal.com. I spend more time reading about football and Apple (Macintoshes and iPods/iPhones) than I do about politics. One of my favorite things to read on foxnews.com is the frequent columns by that ultraconservative Susan Estrich. She has to be since so many people tell me there are no liberal voices on Fox News. <g>

I do venture over to cnn.com, abcnews.com, cbsnews.com, and so on on occasion just also to find out what the opposition is saying or more importantly, isn't bothering to cover.

You know, this has been a really interesting thread to read. I'll rephrase that old statement "The first casualty of war is truth" - The first casualty of politics is truth.

No one should be taking blogs seriously as hard information - they're only quick fire opinion pieces at the best of times.

Perhaps that consumer warning applies to all major network news , too.

The old fairy tale,The Emperor Has No Clothes, has become a parable for these treacherously "interesting times".

c.

In the interest of fairness and courtesy, I'd like to propose something.

Here’s a test. After you read both of these totally fake, completely fictitious, and absolutely made-up news releases, let me know which one is biased. And for the purposes of this test, please ignore any scientific or technical limitations which might exist in the real world.

[Disclaimer]
(Note: The information contained in these news releases is UNTRUE and should NOT be taken seriously!)
[/Disclaimer]

Which one is biased? Careful. The answer may surprise you.

Give up? The answer is: both of them are biased.

Here’s how this works. While both blurbs list the same claim and both quote the same two authorities, the first one is biased towards the truth of Dr. Freedman’s assertion while the second is biased against it. Human psychology is the key. We tend to recall the first few items and the last few items of a long list, especially if we have no more than a passing acquaintance with them. For example, a beginning chemistry student with no previous study would tend to recall the first few and the last few elements in the periodic table after the first attempt to memorize it. And our minds work the same way with short stories and quick news releases.

A listener or reader would, after a single exposure to the first release, be slightly more willing to believe that personal fusion reactors are just around the corner because the release ends on a positive note. A listener or reader would, after a single exposure to the second release, be slightly more willing to class Dr. Freedman’s claims with phrenology, eugenics, and claims of invaders from Mars in New York and London because the release ends on a negative note.

My point is simple. There is no such thing as a completely unbiased news organization. No matter who reports the news, there will be a bias there. It may be subtle, it may be difficult to detect, it may be very tiny, but there will be one. We just can’t help it.

Human nature is such that we cannot be completely objective. Our personal worldview and our beliefs and convictions will affect us whether we are aware of it or not. I would ask that we please keep that in mind as we discuss (in a civil tone, I hope) politics and religion, those two hottest of hot-button issues.

You won't find any argument from me. I've said time and time again that everything is biased and because of that context is paramount.

Now, that doesn't mean that everything is equally biased. Certain outlets are held to higher standards that others. Certain organizations have a longer history than others, are affiliated explicitly with a particular view, etc. That's why exploring the specifics of the organization/writer that provides the information is so important.

Not because it is "the truth," because reaching such a thing is impossible (everyone makes mistakes/the writer is not the organization/has his own views/the readers might interpret it differently/so on)--but because from the recognized bias and general background one gets an idea of how much to trust a source--the difference between The National Enquirer and The National Journal, to be dramatic. But it's not as much an issue of absolutes as it is of degree.

Also, as in with the difference between an article versus a poll/numeric chart there are some sources that leave more room for interpretation than others.

I said it before in the global warming thread and I think it bears mentioning again that whatever "truth" we have that is not narrowly mapped out by science/personal belief system is put into play (so to speak) through consensus. I think this makes it doubly important that one be as informed as possible.

alcyone

ETA: For anyone interested, neoliberal Slate comments on Gibson-Palin interview 1 and 2 . As you can expect, it takes a completely different perspective than what I've seen represented on the boards. I believe this sort of perspective is why some from the left refer to ABC as Fox-lite. The thought that it gets fire from both sides is heartening to me.

I said that I wasn't going to join the Palin debate, but I saw something in today's New York Times that I just have to comment on. According to NYT, when Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the town made rape victims pay for their own rape kits and forensics exams. Which means that if a woman was raped and she didn't have perhaps a thousand dollars to spare, she couldn't afford to get legal evidence that she had been raped, and there would be no forensic evidence against the rapist.

Is it really true that Wasilla wouldn't pay for rape kits and forensic exams for rape victims? I don't know. I only read that claim in the New York Times. The article sounds reliable to me, but, as I said, ultimately I don't know if it tells me the truth. But if indeed it does, and Wasilla under Palin really made rape victims pay for their own rape kits even though the town helped other victims of crime for nothing, then I find this discrimination against rape victims totally shocking, and just about incredibly sexist.

The article is here .

Ann

As I understand it... The victim's insurance company was billed through the hospital and, if convicted, the costs were recouped from the perpetrator. It would be similar, I suppose, to filing a claim with your homeowner's insurance for goods that were stolen and then the ins. co [and possibly you] suing the perpetrator for reimbursement of those costs at a later date. The city/state/whoever doesn't cover the costs of goods lost anywhere, afaik. The same? No, of course not, but a similar MONETARY principle [I'm not talking about the emotional etc., but ONLY the monetary aspect].

That said, I believe it's a City Council decision how to handle those things and not a mayoral one. Part of the separation of powers bit. So just because she was mayor doesn't mean that SHE was making victims or alleged victims pay for them.

Perhaps someone else - RL? - has more info on how this works, but that's my understanding of how those things work.

Carol

Thanks for the info, Carol. In view of what you told me, is it a moderately common practice in the United States to let rape victims pay for their own rape kits and forensic exams through their insurance? And if so, does that mean that women who haven't got insurance have to pay the full cost of the rape kit and forensic exams themselves?

Ann

Ann - Each area is different. I did read a couple articles about it and it seems that Wasilla was the only one in Alaska this way, but the articles I did read were blatantly anti-Palin [will look for more later] so I don't know if they were including... not misinformation, but not including all details. I do know it had to do with a bill the former Gov. signed that said municipalities were supposed to pay for them but offered no reimbursement [on a federal level these are 'unfunded mandates' and a cost analysis has to be done now before they go through in large part because so many unfunded mandates were being pushed through Congress and state/local governments simply could not afford them but had to do them anyway]. On a federal level, in order to qualify for grants under the Violence Against Women Act, *states* are supposed to cover the costs and not pass it on to victims. It seems Alaska may have been passing that cost on to municipalities.

According to City Data [and I have no idea how accurate it is, though the stats for my town that's slightly bigger than Wasilla seems pretty accurate], there's been between 1 and 3 rapes per year this century. I'm guessing those are convictions not accusations, but I don't know that. I have no idea what the average number of rape kits v. convictions are.

This is a US News article from Feb. that talks about this in other places [as Palin wasn't even in the news at this point].

More info is needed IMO about how Wasilla government works and how those decisions are arrived at and whether the state was basically passing an unfunded mandate to pass those costs onto municipalities instead of funding the costs through the state budget. I'd also be more interested to know what, if anything changed between then and when she became governor and if anything was done about it then [if anything needed to be depending on what exactly state law was when she took office].

Carol

Edit: Missed the part about those without insurance - in some places there are charitable organizations etc that will help with expenses incurred. I would think that it's very possible as well, that hospitals would write off those charges if asked [though the victim would have to ask] and try to get reimbursed through the state or by the perpetrator.

Thanks for the additional info, Carol.

A few days ago there was a sensationalist column in the Swedish tabloid Expressen, written by a very popular writer of crime fiction, Liza Marklund . In this column, Marklund painted a horrible picture of what the future United States would be like if McCain/Palin won the upcoming election. One of Marklund's main points was that rapists would be able to roam the country and rape women at their hearts' content, since their victims, the raped women, wouldn't be able to pay for the evidence needed to get the rapists convicted.

Here is Liza Marklund's column, in Swedish of course. The last line of her column reads, 'God help us if McCain wins the election'. The caption under the picture reads, 'In the United States of Sarah Palin women have to arm themselves, because if they get raped they have to pay for parts of the police investigation themselves'.

Marklund's column did not seem serious to me. How can she claim to know what McCain/Palin's policy on rape will be, if they become President and VP? There is no way any of us can know the future. And I had read nothing that suggested that McCain and Palin were the least bit lenient on rape.

However, now that I have read that article in the New York Times, I understand what sort of info Marklund has come across. Clearly it has to do with Palin's record as mayor of Wasilla, and Wasilla's policy of billing rape victims for rape kits and forensic exams.

I understand very well that Palin was not the dictator of Wasilla, and that she was not responsible for all the political decisions there. I'm not really interested in trying to sort out exactly what sort of responsibility she had for the treatment of rape victims there.

But something else is important to me. Good judgement is important to me. Which is why I wonder if Palin will go on record saying that if she becomes VP, she will fight for rape victims' right to have a forensic exam free of charge. In my opinion, she should say just that. She may not have been responsible for the rape victim policy in Wasilla, but her own views on rape become suspect because of what things were like in that town. Will Palin have the courage and strength of character to say that although raped women were billed for their rape kits in Wasilla when she was mayor there, she will do her very best to see to it that all American women who need a rape kit and a forensic exam free will get it free of charge, if she becomes VP of the United States?

The alternative for Sarah Palin, as I see it, is to either refuse to talk about rape or Wasilla in the first place, or else to insist that it is a good policy to bill rape victims for the forensic evidence they need. Either alternative, and particularly the last one, will make many women both in the United States and abroad quite horrified. And even if McCain and Palin can win the upcoming election anyway, it is a bad idea to start off a presidency by making people horrified at one's apparent policy on rape. It is not a sign of good judgement.

Ann

I would like to mention that this is a state and local issue for which the federal government has little to no say. It doesn't matter what their (McCain and Palin, nor Obama and Biden for that matter) opinions are since they don't control local crime policies. Many people not from the US aren't familiar with the concept of federalism where most matters are actually the responsibility of localities and not the federal government.

There are federal crimes that encompass crimes that cross state lines or are committed on federal property but the vast majority of crimes are matters for state and local laws.

This concept is why so many strict constructionists (those who believe the Constitution should be adhered to as intended and not as a living document) oppose the federal Education Department as well as hot button issues like Roe v. Wade. Strict constructionists feel these are issues to be decided by the states and localities, not the feds. The reason for this is the 10'th Amendment of the Constitution which states that any responsibilities not given to the federal government and not denied to the states is exclusively the domain of the states.

A little known thing is that even if Roe v. Wade were to overturned, not much would change since the decision would revert to the states. I saw a study a while back that said perhaps eight states would pass abortion bans while the rest would leave things the way they are. Most people are told that if the case were to be overturned that abortion would be immediately banned in all 50 states. That's not the case.

That's all I'll ever say on that issue, btw. It is used merely as an illustration of how federalism works.

Education is not even mentioned in the Constitution, which is why so many strict constructionists believe the federal government should butt out of an exclusively state issue.

Ann,

Gov. Palin has already issued a statement that she “does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test.”

Jim Geraghty writes:

When the practice came to light, the state passed a law banning it, and the minutes from the state-legislature committees reveal several missing details. Among them:

1.Wasilla was not mentioned in any of the hearings. In a conference call with reporters earlier this month, Tony Knowles (the man Palin beat in her governor’s race) claimed Wasilla was the lone town with the practice. This isn’t true.

In fact, at a Finance Committee hearing, Representative Gail Phillips (R., Homer) “read for the record, a statement from a woman in Juneau who had experienced the charges as indicated.”

In six committee meetings, Wasilla was never mentioned, even when the discussion turned to the specific topic of where victims were being charged.

2. The deputy commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Public Safety told the State Affairs Committee that he has never found a police agency that has billed a victim. In light of Wasilla’s low number of rapes according to available FBI statistics (one to two per year, compared to Juneau’s 30-39), and the fact that the Wasilla Finance Department cannot find any record of charging a victim for a rape kit, it is entirely possible that no victim was ever charged.

To clarify: In preparation to attend a hearing and support the bill, one of the state’s top law-enforcement officials found no case of a rape victim ever being charged. And roughly a month after 30 Democratic lawyers, investigators, and opposition researchers, not to mention reporters from every major news agency in the country, landed in Alaska, we still have no instances to consider.

3. Three times, witnesses told the committees that hospitals were responsible for passing the bill on to victims, not police agencies. This information also fortifies Palin’s claim that she was never aware of the policy, as it is more plausible that a mayor would not be aware of a private hospitals’ billing policy than of the police department’s billing policy.

At one of the meetings, Trisha Gentile, executive director of the Council on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault, said some Alaska hospitals “have chosen to separate some of the costs of sexual-assault exams. Hospitals are adding sexually-transmitted-disease (STD) and blood tests to the cost of sexual-assault exams, and the hospital makes a choice to bill the victim for those charges. Police departments are willing to pay for sexual assault exams, but it is an internal decision on the part of the hospital as to who pays the hospital bill.” (emphasis mine)

From the beginning, the story didn’t seem to add up. Nothing in Sarah Palin’s background suggested a callousness to rape victims; it seemed particularly unlikely that a female mayor would support such a bad policy.

Since I assume that most of you have never had to deal with this, I thought I'd point you to this article , which describes what it's like to be subjected to the rape kit collection process.

I found the story to be very similar to my situation. It begins to capture the humiliation of standing completely naked on butcher paper as someone intensely scrutinizes every inch of your body in a brightly lit room and the embarrasment of having to tell mutliple health and law officials about the exact details of what happened. It gives people an idea of how long the process takes...but of course, the rape kit collection process is just the beginning of a long investigation process.

As a victim, I never was told about the status of the investigation. I assumed, as anyone would, that the rape kit would be processed and that might lead to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator (who was a stranger). Imagine how I must have felt when I learned that the city of San Diego had disposed of over 100,000 rape kits that had never been processed because the backlog was too great and the statute of limitations had run out on the cases. The police certainly never notified victims that this had occured - I had to find out about it through a newspaper investigation. This has happened time and time again throughout the country.

The rape kit collection process made me feel like just another victim. The lackluster investigation made me feel like just another victim. The unprocessed dna evidence that had been collected then thrown away was the final indignity. It's difficult enough for rape victims to come forward in the first place - we don't need to be victimized by the legal system as well.

This is all I'm gonna say....

So, when do we see the apology from those who have jumped to conclusions about Gov. Palin and accused her of some pretty nasty things? And will we get a link from the Swedish columnist when she writes her apology column?

I don't expect to see either, frankly. Truth should not get in the way of good political mud-slinging.

Trinity, I couldn't see that video. All I got was a message that it wasn't available in my country.

And Terry, it's not as if I regularly read that tabloid, Expressen, where Liza Marklund wrote her column about Sarah Palin. I happened to buy it the day Expressen ran it. And it's not as if I keep track of Marklund's columns. But I agree with your assessment that it is exceedingly unlikely that Marklund will apologize. Columnists who attack politicians whose views they don't share hardly ever apologize for their attacks, or at least it seems that way to me. Moreover, based on the general impression I have of Liza Marklund (and of Sarah Palin), I would guess that Marklund thinks that she has nothing to apologize for.

Ann

Sorry, Ann. That video was a skit of a show here called Saturday Night Live spoofing Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. It's copyrighted so there's no full version anywhere else that I can see.

I have no clue on what the facts are of the rape kit in particular. However, from what I've gathered of Sarah Palin, she tends to say one thing and act another and I've come to the conclusion that nothing she says should be taken at face value. She seems perfectly capable of denying events/facts exist, even when there is recorded evidence to prove her wrong or to be 'being economical with the truth'.

And, Terry - I've seen nothing to suggest that those who've questioned Sarah Palin's character or suitability for office have been wrong. Quite the opposite. So...no apologies necessary there, imo.

Have you called, incidentally, for apologies from those who continually try to suggest that Obama's name is so close to Bin Laden's he must be a terrorist? Or that he's a Muslim, so he must be a terrorist? If not, you have no grounds to complain/demand apologies when your own candidate is targeted. Fair play and respect for all, please. Not just for those you agree with.

LabRat

Whatever your personal views of Palin may be, the facts speak for themselves.

Crime statistics show one (1) reported rape in the city of Wasilla between the time Palin was elected and the time the law was changed. City financial records indicate no rape victim was billed for rape kits while Palin was mayor; women *were* charged in other cities in Alaska, including Juneau.

Although rape victims in Alaska are no longer billed for rape kits, US World and News Reports reported this past February that rape victims continue to be charged for forensic exams in Illinois, Georgia and Arkansas. This, despite HB1814 , the bill sponsored by Obama in 2000. Obama's bill states that crime victims are entitled to compensation (that is, rape victims can file a claim to be reembursed for the charge of rape kits) IF the application is filed within 2 years of the crime, law enforcement officials were notified with 72 hours of the perpetration of the crime, the applicant cooperated fully with law enforcement officials, and the injury of the victim was not substancially attributable to his(her) own wrongful act, and was not provoked by the victim.

Labby, you say you don't know the facts of the rape kit case first-hand, yet you conclude that "nothing she says should be taken at face value." It's a good thing she's not a member of this board, or that might be construed as a flame.

And saying:
misses my point completely. I was referring only to those who have either left feedback or who were referenced in this thread. Sarah Marklund of Sweden is, as Ann said, unlikely to apologize for her characterization of the governor.

Just to be clear, Ann linked to that editorial in the New York Times by Dorothy Samuels slamming Sarah Palin for what has turned out to be a false report and incorrectly called it an article. I don't know what the accepted practice is in either Sweden or Britain, but over on this side of the pond, an "article" is supposed to be a news item, not an expression of someone's opinion. And yes, I know that every news source is biased, as Alcyone has stated. And no, I doubt that Ms. Samuels plans to print an apology.

You also wrote:
which seems to be a bit harsh, especially since the Democrats over here haven't caught her in a deliberate lie. You can be sure that if they had, it would be all over the news channels and would have been trumpeted by Joe Biden during the VP candidate debate last night. If you have such proof, I would like to read it. I don't want to support a candidate who lies repeatedly.

I have not read anything in this thread about Barack Obama being a Muslim or a terrorist. And I don't believe that he is either one. I disagree with his stated policies and political beliefs, but I do not think he is an evil person. I have nothing personal against him at all. My comments were not prompted by attacks against "my candidate." If posters in this thread were making unwarranted attacks on Senator Obama, I would feel the same way. I want to know the truth, an chiding me for expressing my desire for those truths isn't productive.