If we had a functioning press, the BYO-rape-kit story would be plastered all over every tv and newspaper in the country.  At the very least, it would get about a thousand times more coverage than the lipstick-on-a-pig pseudo-story.

For those who haven't heard the whole story:

1.  Wasilla, AK, during Palin's term as mayor, had a policy whereby police would charge sexual assault victims for the cost of rape kits.  That's right, the police under Palin's command charged violent crime victims for gathering evidence on the their behalf.  Can you imagine charging murder victims' families for taking fingerprints, running balistics, etc.  That's not a police department, that's a protection racket. 

2.  The Alaska state legislature, specifically in order to stop Wasilla from continuing this practice, passed a law preventing police departments from charging sexual assault victims for rape kits.

3.  Abject horror was not the Alaska legislature's only motive in passing the law.  They also wanted the state to be eligible for federal funding under the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which carried the condition that neither state nor municipal law enforcement charged sexual assault victims for rape kits.  Wasilla police policy was a barrier to that funding.

4.  The provision of the VAWA conditioning funding on this prohibition was pushed through congress by none other than...wait for it...Democractic VP candidate Joe Biden.

5.  The provision was opposed by none other than...wait for it...Republican Presidential candidate John McCain.

So, we have three actors.  One wrote the protection for women.  One opposed the protection for women.  One had to be forced by her state legislature to comply with the protection for women.  Both actors on the wrong side of protecting women against sexual assault are on the Republican ticket.  The actor on the right side is on the Democratic ticket.

This is a very simple part of our democratic process.  Politicians, among other things, make policy.  Some politicians oppose that policy.  Some violate that policy.  If we like the policy, we need to elect politicians that will make it happen, and defeat those politicians that oppose and/or violate it.  Now, lots of policies are difficult to assess.  A lot of times, we only know what we want the outcome to be, and we fight over how to achieve it.  Occasionally, issues are sufficiently simple that the general public can tell both what's right and how to get there.  Lifting the financial burden of collecting evidence off of back of rape victims is one of these issues.

A lot of conservatives seem to hate VAWA (big surprise).  They will likely bring up two things.

1.  Conservatives will say that even the ACLU opposed the Violence Against Women Act.  This was true, at first.  However, they have changed their mind about it, and when it came time for reauthorization in 2005, they said this:

VAWA is one of the most effective pieces of legislation enacted to end domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. It has dramatically improved the law enforcement response to violence against women and has provided critical services necessary to support women and children in their struggle to overcome abusive situations. Because VAWA remains an essential tool for combating domestic violence, it is important for Congress to continue the programs established under VAWA 1994 and build on the success of the law.

You can read their entire letter to the Senate Judiciary here.

2.  Part of the 1994 bill was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2000 (U.S. v. Morrison, 5-4 decision, the usual suspects plus O'Connor and Kennedy).  The struck portion had nothing to do with rape-kit costs.  The majority ruled against the provision allowing federal civil suits to be brought against gender-motivated violent attackers by their victims.  They kicked the civil-suit jurisdiction back to the states.

There are a lot of times where we complain about the press not doing its job well, fairly, evenhandedly, etc.  Media Matters is out there every day documenting the rightward outrages of press coverage.  But saying that the media should remind the public that John McCain said "lipstick on a pig" too is, frankly, not all that much better than the original story itself.  Every day, every chance you journalists out there get, hammer on this question.  Do Sarah Palin and John McCain get behind Joe Biden's policy of protecting women from sexual assault, or do they continue to oppose it.