Alaska's New Tourism Slogan: Come To Alaska, We Have A Lot Of Rapes and Murders!

When news broke that Wasilla charged rape victims for rape examinations while Sarah Palin was mayor, the angle taken by the 'blogosphere' was that 'Sarah Palin Charged People For Rape Kits." As the CNN article states, "interviews and a review of records turned up no evidence that Palin knew that rape victims were being charged in her town."

Why Would I Know What's Going On In My City? I'm Only The Mayor! Even though she hasn't exactly proven herself to be entirely trustworthy, I'm willing to take her claims of ignorance as being true ... which leads to a bigger problem: How could a mayor of a town of only 7,000 people NOT know about the practice? It's not like it was a secret. After all, Rep. Eric Croft knew about it. He sponsored a state law requiring cities to provide the examinations free of charge to victims. The town's police chief, who apparently was a strong supporter of the practice, opposed the bill in the legislature. So now, Palin didn't know that rape victims were being charged for exams AND that her police chief was vocally opposing statewide legislation.

Rape and Murder Capital of America? But even more disturbing is this statistic provided by CNN: "For years, Alaska has had the worst record of any state in rape and in murder of women by men. The rape rate in Alaska is 2.5 times the national average." Two and a half times is an awful lot. If you went to McDonald's to buy a hamburger on the dollar menu, and they charged you $2.50, you'd be pretty mad ... unless you were so rich that you didn't care how much food cost ... but if you were that rich, odds are, you'd be eating somewhere better than McDonald's (cue angry comments from wealthy people who are insulted because they eat McDonald's). No wonder Palin is such a gun advocate - if you're a woman in Alaska, you apparently need a gun to keep someone from raping and murdering you.

Rightly or wrongly, people who tout their 'executive experience' are judged by the things that happen under their watch as executive. And at least in this area, Alaska's performance is pretty poor.