Sarah Palin and rape exams

I'll get around to my critique of Sarah Palin's interview with Charlie Gibson a little later. If you're familiar with me and this spot, you probably have a solid idea of where I fall on her performance last night.

But first, I thought I should steer you - my faithful readers - to this post by hilzoy about Palin's record as mayor of Wasilla as it regards to the town's policy of charging rape victims for exams. Here's a snippet:

This has already been reported around the blogosphere. It's abhorrent, especially when you note that as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin had no problem raising money to build a sports center, but drew the line at paying for rape victims' forensic exams.

But there are two points that are worth underscoring. First, this would have been bad enough if it was just a matter of being decent to women who have been raped. But it's not. Unless the police catch the guy in the act, forensic exams provide some of the best evidence against a rapist. Not collecting this evidence means significantly lowering your chances of convicting the man who did it. That means that the people who pay for this idiotic policy are not just the rape victims whose tests are not done, but any women their rapists might go on to rape in the future. Not collecting the evidence that would put rapists behind bars means more rape victims in the future.

You'd think that $5,000 to $14,000 a year would be a small price to pay for putting violent sex offenders behind bars. Apparently, Sarah Palin disagrees.

I'm not going to call Palin's credentials as a feminist into question, mostly because I'm similarly wary of folks who aren't black trying to tell others who's black enough and who's not. (That means you, Toby Keith.)

But, honestly, for someone who describes herself as a feminist, this is a remarkable bit of political history. It's tough to accept that claim in light of this sort of evidence to the contrary.