Why is Sarah Palin Soft on Child Molesters?
“Sarah Palin’s latest explanation for why she fired Walt Monegan,” writes TPM Muckraker’s Zachary Roch, referring to the Troopergate scandal, “is that he had gone over her head in seeking federal money for an initiative to combat sexual assault crimes, before she had approved the program.”
Yeah, sure. It’s insubordination, it’s this, it’s always some excuse.
But, even if this is the real reason, even if she is now, finally, telling the truth:
[I]f Palin’s new story is true, she fired Monegan for being too aggressive in going after child molesters.
ABC News reported yesterday that, although Alaska leads the nation in reported rapes per capita, Palin hasn’t made the issue a priority as governor.
Monegan, however, appeared eager to change that. “He seemed to get the issue and really took it seriously,” [Peggy] Brown [head of the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault] told TPMmuckraker.
According to the Palin camp, too seriously.
As I keep saying:
AMERICANS DESERVE TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT SARAH PALIN.
30 Responses to “Why is Sarah Palin Soft on Child Molesters?”
GOP tabloid smokescreen alert..
This headline is just completely over the top. So now Palin is soft on child molesters? Michael, do you honestly believe this? Maybe you do; that's fair. Using this logic though can we conclude that those who oppose the 3,000 foot rule are soft on child molesters, those who oppose the death penalty as soft on murderers, those who are friends with one-time terrorists as soft on terror? This is absurd. On one hand you want to complain about how everyone is talking about “non-issues” but on the other you create and champion them. Its a worthy debate to be talking about “troopergate” but sinking to this level really makes me wonder what kind of discussion you want to have.
I agree. This header is starkers and counter-productive.
The crazed feeding frenzy on Palin in the first weekend after her pick CREATED her.
They built her up into a GOP culture warrior, and a sympathetic figure among the general public.
Senator Obama was, I recall, one of the sole voices of reason when he declared family out-of-bounds.
But implying she is soft on child molestation? She is, after all, a mother of five.
Can you imagine, in the VP Debate, this question being asked of Palin?
Her numbers would go through the roof!
Why not stick to the straight, narrow . . . and EASY?
How many different . . . and valid . . . target points does Palin have? I have lost count myself.
Stickings's Frequent Frenzy and commonplace hatred and pathology is nothing new.
And if he believed his latest thread's title, shouldn't he feel relieved, even happy, if he were to visit the States? If not for himself, then for people sharing his behavioral level?
Just wait. Just wait until the liberal media and the play-pen liberal bloggers (Stickings being a stellar case in point ALREADY) witness additional progress for McCain-Palin and future blunders by Obama-Biden. The frenzy and the hatred will rise (descend) to new record levels. Already they're rivaling the worst idiocy from the losers that has been directed in the past against Reagan, then against Bush.
From Michael: “AMERICANS DESERVE TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT SARAH PALIN.”
So then I wonder if you would condone this:
“Group Posts E-Mail Hacked From Palin Account”
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/group-…
Jchem…
I just noticed that. Disturbingly, GAWKER is now displaying contact information and personal phone numbers for Palin's children, family and friends.
Clearly, it is still open season on Palin.
I imagine there will be a full court press to stop this story from spreading by smart Democrats.
However, dumb gleeful Democrats will hop around the fire and exchange screenshots and make prank phone calls to Palin's kids . . . thereby increasing Palin's stature as a sympathetic figure subjected to an unprecedented feeding frenzy.
“dumb gleeful democrats” and GOP moles who want to keep the tabloid fires burning for a strategic reason.
Michael Stickings, Jazz Shaw, and Shaun Mullen continue the daily limbo contest….
How low can they go?
Further . . .
Bristol Palin's – Governor Palin's 17 year old daughter – cell phone number has just been posted on a site, along with an obscene message left demanding nude photos.
Clearly, a lot of people believe Sarah Palin must be taken down, by any means necessary.
If this continues to blow-up . . . look for Palin's numbers to rise into the bloody stratosphere!
Dumb and dumber.
Marlowecan,
I couldn't agree with you more. This is just sleaze; I see its moving on up the line over at memeorandum. Although in that GAWKER piece you mention, the first thing they ask is, “Did the internet just cause Sarah Palin to destroy evidence?” Let me see if I get this correct. Someone hacks her account, multiple people try to log in, the account is closed, and somehow she destroyed the evidence?
Diverting attention from the issue at hand here guys? Palin has changed her story on TrooperGate at least 5 times – what is she hiding? What a great reformer!!
The posting of personal information is reprehensible – can't wait until they find the 15 year old in Seattle who hacked in and punish him for it.
Now back to the fundamental story – Sarah Palin is a Liar.
That has always been the problem, RevDave.
Look at the initial attacks on Palin. Some people talked about experience . . .then the mob started howling about: “Is Trig really her baby, or is she covering for her daughter?”
The venom of her opponents and their attacks on her family made Palin sympathetic . . . and diverted attention from her weaknesses.
Not only tacky, its not smart politics.
Yes, Jchem, I've noticed that meme too. . . suggesting this is some devious plot by McCain and Rove to delete Palin's incriminating emails.
Loons and truthers.
This whole Palin affair will do wonders for Alaskan tourism. I want to visit the state now, and I had never thought I would.
Crazed dairy farmers, hunters and all sorts of naughty goings-on out behind the dairy barns beneath the glimmer of the Northern Lights. Sounds like a state out of “Twin Peaks”.
The issue at hand? “Why is Palin soft on child molesters?” You gotta be kidding me. If you would like to discuss that, well then I'll leave you to it. Palin is lying, okay, medal to you for pointing that out…again.
The issue at hand here is differing views on policy vs outright character assassination. I mean, if you were accused of child molestation, went to court, and were acquitted, you'd still be walking under a dark cloud in many people's eyes. Accusing Palin of being “soft on child molesters” is just plain stupid. Look at my first comment to see where this logic can take you.
Sorry, but if McCain wants to call Obama's “lipstick on a pig” an attack on Palin, and attack him for “teaching kindergarteners all about sex”, he's kind of bringing this kind of attack upon himself.
The RNC is getting one of its own smear tactics blown back in their faces– and complaining about it is like the pot calling the kettle black.
I thought that McCain add attacking Obama for wanting to sex ed kindergartners asked for a response:
John McCain supports pedophiles.
Seems like it is in the same level of ridiculousness.
On the e-mail hacking, clearly stupid and breaks the law. I also think the governor hiding on a private e-mail account to stop application of FOIA is particularly disturbing, especially after the last eight years. So much for transparency in government right??
Gee, it couldn't be that Michael is just snarking at the McCain folks because of their ad about Obama and sex ed, could it? Maybe? Just possibly?
Kritt, this goes beyond standard campaign smear tactics.
For one reason, it is against the law, and the DOJ is now investigating.
Second, exposing the personal cell phone numbers of minors – and leaving obscene messages at those numbers – is simply inexcusable . . . even if the minor happens to be the child of a political opponent!
You, and most Democrats, would be howling if this was Obama's family and children having their privacy invaded in this way. . . and rightly so.
Equally rightly, this is beyond the bounds.
The headline of this topic is over the top. But kritt makes a good point: it's not much different than accusing Obama of “teaching kindergarteners all about sex” — in a TV ad of all things.
Anyway, it does appear that many women's groups weren't too thrilled about her firing Monegan, because he apparently was a champion of victims' groups dealing with violence against women. Oddly,
Palin even praised his efforts just a couple of months before she canned him. Also, consider the guy she hired to replace him. He only lasted two weeks, due to his history of sexual harrassment. So if she's going to try to push this latest meme as her rationale for firing the guy, it sounds like it will be up-hill sledding.
Marlowe– I missed the part about Gawker displaying cell phone numbers of Palin's family members– that IS way over the line. Who even knows where the line is any more? We have sunk so low that its hard to remember a relatively civil presidential campaign. Palin should pursue her legal options to protect her family's privacy.
Cheers Kritt.
Yah, investigating Palin is one thing, but this is something else.
Yes, as Obama said, family should be off-limits.
I remember some right-wing bloggers using Obama's kids to embarrass him back in the primaries . . . I forget precisely the issue . . . and I thought that was low and appalling.
I hope the DOJ and Secret Service visit lots of people.
I doubt it, though.
They have bigger fish to fry . . . as we speak, working at the behest of the RIAA tracking some grandmother in Florida who is downloading a Frank Sinatra mp3.
Hmm – As we see the race to the bottom get ever more disgusting, this takes the cake, and shows who the real fascists and slimeballs are – the Left:
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/17/palins-…
Oh, BTW – Micheal, don't lie to us. Shaun wrote that headline for you, didn't he?
Oh good grief. “Soft on child molesters?”
Look, we live, alas, in a world of limited resources. There are LOTS of good programs that can't get funded at the levels that those who favor the programs would like. Governments have to make choices about those programs. In the federal government, in administrations of BOTH parties, agency officials who argue in favor of X billion within the Executive Branch, and then have the President's budget resolve the internal debate at .9X billion are expected to defend the President's budget in Congress and to the public, not to go argue for X, and they'd get booted pretty quickly if they didn't. I doubt that it is or should be different in Alaska. The Governor, not the individual agency heads, balance the competing demands of all the many good ideas for spending money. If Monegan's arguing for money Palin hadn'd approved was why she fired Monegan — which sounds plausible to me, but I haven't been following this issue with the obsession of some — then it was clearly justifiable.
In any event, “soft on child molesters” is an immoderate cheap shot.
I sincerely hope that whoever did the posting of the cell phone numbers gets their posterior nailed to a wall somewhere, preferably to a metal wall in Alaska 3 months from now. It is a despicable thing for anyone to do.
Marlowe-Yes, I remember McCain making some disgusting comments years
ago, that Chelsea Clinton was so ugly that she had to be the daughter of
Hillary and Janet Reno. I really couldn't think of him the same way after
that. How humiliating for a young girl who never even ran for office!
I really don't know how anyone with a family survives the viciousness of
these campaigns! No wonder so many of the spouses end up on drugs or as
alchoholics.
One thing– this campaign season has lasted too long, and its only going to
get uglier. This is just the tip of the iceberg!
See ya at TMV
kritt – so you feel that making a crude joke in private equates to publishing personal phone numbers on the internet?
Nope, no mindless, reflexive bias to see here. Move along you looky-loos. Get back to your houses.
Hey Kritt…
I have a vague memory of that. I also remember something about Rush Limbaugh calling Chelsea the “White House Dog” on air to millions of his listeners.
That was disgusting. For a young girl.
I totally agree with you. Yes, I am tired of this campaign. Especially tired of Palin.
But I fear you are right . . . it will only get worse in coming weeks.
Cheers> Subject: [themoderatevoice] Re: Why is Sarah Palin Soft on Child Molesters?> From: > To: marlowecan@hotmail.com> Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:34:05 +0000> > kritt11 wrote:> > Marlowe-Yes, I remember McCain making some disgusting comments years> ago, that Chelsea Clinton was so ugly that she had to be the daughter of> Hillary and Janet Reno. I really couldn't think of him the same way after> that. How humiliating for a young girl who never even ran for office!> > I really don't know how anyone with a family survives the viciousness of> these campaigns! No wonder so many of the spouses end up on drugs or as> alchoholics.> > One thing– this campaign season has lasted too long, and its only going to> get uglier. This is just the tip of the iceberg!> > See ya at TMV> > Link: http://themoderatevoice.com/politics/sarah-pali…> > –> You may reply to this email to post your response. To turn off notifications, go to your Disqus settings at: http://disqus.com/settings/notifications/
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AR- They are both disgusting, devastating to the subject involved, and
unfortunately all too prevalent in the partisan cut throat political
environment we live in. Did the joke stay private? Of course not- it became
national news. And Obama didn't publish those numbers- so you can't hold
him personally responsible.
McCain is supposed to be a leader that we can respect and look up to. He
knows that as a national figure anything he says has the potential to end up
on cable news, or on the internet, or on late night talk shows. So yes, I
lost respect for him, and have seen no reason lately to regain it.
Obama at least said he wanted Palin's family left out of the slime that
counts for a campaign.
Usually, I respect your views but disagree with you — but this time I
think you are going off the deep end with partisan one-up-man-ship. Nowhere
did I say which was worse– BUT both are devastating. Cell phone numbers can
be changed. Scars from ugly comments like McCain's involving an adolescent
girl last forever.
kritt – we will agree to disagree on this. It is not partisanship – I truly believe that a joke, told in private, which was then leaked, is WAY different than hacking web sites, publishing private phone numbers etc.
I was reacting to your comment that seemed to equate them, not saying that Obama was responsible for the recent actions.
I did make the point in another thread though that when someone from the right does something sleezy, then this board gets inundated with posts and comments about how this is just another Rovian-type coordinated dirty trick to throw mud that cannot be attributed to the candidate directly, but really is being run from the campaign headquarters, and shows how the right will stoop to any level to win.
But when the left does the same thing, then it is just a few (or one) people, who are independent, and it is an uncoordinated attack that says nothing about the left as a whole, or the left candidate and his campaign, who are pure of heart.
In this case, obviously, we are comparing a direct comment of McCain to actions I truly believe had no input from the Obama campaign, just to be clear.