Why is Sarah Palin soft on child molesters?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(I know, I know. I have Palin Fatigue, too. But it's just the gift that keeps on giving. She -- and the phenomenon she is, or has been manufactured to be -- dominated media coverage for a couple of weeks, helping McCain, but the tide has turned, and, ever more, she is being exposed as a liar and a fraud, ignorant and arrogant, ideologically extreme, recklessly dangerous. Obama -- and all of us who support him -- need to direct our attention at the top of the ticket, but it is nonetheless still helpful to continue to expose Palin for what she is.)

"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.