Though there's no doubt, after Meltdown Monday, that it's the 'economy AGAIN, stupid', there's also no let up in the vetting of someone who has claims to be a heartbeat away from potentially the oldest ever President elect.
Our friends over on Motley Moose have an exclusive. Tania Tetlow, a former Federal Prosecutor and now Professor of Law at Tulane, has brilliantly exposed how Governor Palin's policies on domestic violence and rape have undone decades of consensus, and for all her purported 'feminism' represent a backward move to the dark ages.
Sarah Palin has provided the ultimate example of why a female candidate is no substitute for a candidate who cares about women. Compare Palin and Biden's records on violence against women, an issue on which both sides normally agree. The political right may not always prioritize the cause, but it does not disagree that domestic violence is destructive of families and that rape is fundamentally wrong. Yet Palin sailed right past apathy to downright punishment of women for reporting rapes.
With her field experience of law and domestic violence, Tania Tetlow knows what she is talking about. And when she quotes local officials, she also knows what this means on the ground.
Palin did not charge any other crime victims for the privilege of law enforcement. When the Wasilla police fingerprinted a house that had been burglarized, they did not present the owners with a bill for their services. But rape, of course, is different. As an on-line reader of Wasilla's local paper wrote in response to the issue:
To weed out the false accusations women make with respect to sexual assaults, many towns have and are charging for rape kits. I have worked enough rapes to know when the town ho cries foul just to be vindictive and YES she should be charged.
The only measure of a candidate is what they have done in the past. It's clear what Sarah Palin's position is from her time in Alaska. It's not just blaming the victim, it's billing the victim.
So Governor Palin isn't the presidential candidate. She's just the VP nominee. OK. Let's compare like with like:
Which state has more than double the national rate of rape, and the highest per capita murder rate of women by men? You guessed it. Alaska.
Not only is Joe Biden better on this issue, he has been the nation's most vocal champion for ending violence against women. Biden drafted a federal statute that banned local communities from charging for rape kits (contained in a crime bill that McCain voted against.) Biden spent years of his Senate career authoring and passing the Violence Against Women Act ("VAWA"), a law that created federal enforcement of interstate domestic violence and stalking, and, more importantly, brought massive funding to local police departments to protect women.
Since VAWA, the domestic violence murder rate has decreased substantially. Joe Biden has saved countless women from rape and murder.
It's McCain versus Obama. I know how that works out. But it's also Palin versus Biden. And on any feminist issue, I know who is in the right camp: vote Biden against Palin
UPDATE: It gets worse. Just read this courtesy of AP. Troopergate also connects to the domestic violence issue. Monegan was ultimately fired for seeking federal funds to protect women.
The last straw, the McCain campaign said, was in July, when Monegan planned to travel to Washington to seek federal money for a plan to assign troopers, judges and prosecutors who could exclusively handle sexual assault cases — one of the state's most intractable crime problems.
In a July 7 e-mail, John Katz, the governor's special counsel, noted two problems with the trip: The governor hadn't agreed the money should be sought, and the request was "out of sequence with our other appropriations requests and could put a strain on the evolving relationship between the Governor and Sen. (Ted) Stevens."
SECOND UPDATE: thanks to another rec list diary on DKOS, an explanation of why Palin wouldn't fund rape kits. It's crazy, it's unexpected, but it's totally in the Assembly of God agenda. Why? Because they contain emergency contraception.