In the past, the Boston Globe-Democrat has been content to outsource blatantly-false attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin to others.  Sure, the BG-D would publish lies like “Sarah Palin opposes teaching about birth control” (false) and “Sarah Palin called the Iraq War a mission from God (even more false), but they would give themselves the fig-leaf of publishing these lies under someone else’s byline.

Not anymore.  Today, the Boston Globe-Democrat drank deep of the Kool-Aid, tossed journalistic ethics to the wind and dove deep into the pool of Palin Derangement Syndrome.

The lead editorial in the Globe-Democrat today is entitled “Wasilla Made Rape Victims Pay.”  This headline is what’s known in the news business as a “lie.”

The lies continue:

ONE QUESTION that Sarah Palin should answer during tomorrow's debate is why, during her tenure as mayor of Wasilla, the town started charging rape victims or their insurers for hospital emergency-room rape kits and examinations.

But if it didn’t happen, if no rape victim or her insurance company was ever charged for a rape kit, then this sentence is an outrageous and horrifying lie.  Would the Boston Globe-Democrat really run such an indefensible lie?  That’s a great question, too.

And it is so easily answered.  All the Globe-Democrat has to do is show a single incident of “the town charging rape victims or their insurers” for rape kits.  Just one.  That’s all.  Should be easy, right?  After all, Rene Loth &Co. (editorial page editor of the Boston Globe-Democrat) are reporting it as fact. Surely, Rene, you have the facts.  So just publish them.

Ah, but that might be difficult.  You see, as has been reported repeatedly for weeks now, there is no record of the city of Wasilla ever charging anyone for a rape kit.  And as of 2000, the state of Alaska changed the law to prohibit towns—like Juneau, which actually DID—from charging for them. 

The Boston Globe Democrat knows this.  The debunking of the “rape kit” myth is widely known.  The liberal online magazine Slate.com wrote about it, concluding that the entire story “is a nasty and untrue rumor about Sarah Palin that's been circulating for weeks.”

But the Boston Globe-Democrat repeated that lie today.  And more:

The policy so outraged the Alaska Legislature that in 2000 it passed unanimously a bill forbidding such fees. But Palin has never explained why, under her leadership, the town stopped picking up the cost of the swabs, specimen containers, and tests.

Oh, really?  It was outrage against Sarah Palin’s policy that inspired the legislature to act?  The Boston Globe-Democrat says so.  And it’s an assertion of “fact” that’s amazingly easy to “fact check.”  All Rene has to do is publish the minutes of one of the legislative hearings in which Wasilla and its policy are being debated.  Or discussed.  Or even mentioned ONCE.

Alas, it didn’t happen.  As Jim Geraghty’s extensive reporting on this story for National Review reveals, there were six hearings on the state “rape kit” law.    Do you know how many times Wasilla was mentioned in those hearings?

The same number of times the Boston Globe-Democrat fact-checks its editorials.  (For regular BG-D readers, that would be “none”).

The editorial goes on to take one of the usual cheap shots at Gov. Palin, then claims:

After the Alaska Legislature banned the fees, Palin's handpicked police chief, Charlie Fannon, complained that the state's action would force the town to spend $5,000 to $14,000 a year to cover the costs. "I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer," Fannon said.

Once again, this is the Police Chief—not Sarah Palin (what, is the Globe alleging Palin had a “rape kit” litmus test for law enforcement?) and he’s talking about the legislature’s actions, not the city.  But the key part of Chief Fannon’s comments are mysteriously absent from the Globe-Democrat’s “reporting.”  The very next sentence of the local Alaska paper’s news story is:

Ultimately it is the criminal who should bear the burden of the added costs, Fannon said.

Palin’s “hand-picked” Chief wanted the criminals to pay.  At no point did he ever even suggest that the victims should.  But here is the Globe-busting punchline to the story:  The city of Wasilla DID pay for rape kits under Sarah Palin.

When this story broke Chief Long of the Wasilla Police Department went back and checked the records.  While no records could be found of the city ever charging anyone for anything related to the costs of a rape investigation, he found two instances in early 2000—before the new law took effect—of Wasilla paying $530 each for two rape kits.

The Boston Globe-Democrat is lying.  They’re lying in ways that would result in an immediate dismissal at a real newspaper.  But the Globe-Democrat abandoned journalism long ago.

In fact, it’s gotten so bad that today’s editorial actually goes beyond intentional misreporting and into conspiracy theories:

But the policy on rape kits may have had less to do with easing the burden on taxpayers and more to do with Palin's position on abortion. She has said she opposes it even in cases of rape or incest.

Aha!  The rape kit policy that didn’t exist was actually part of a radical pro-life agenda from Gov. Strangelove!  We caught her red-handed…except for the fact that it didn’t happen.

Of course Sarah Palin supports dragging rape victims to small-claims court to pay for rape kits.  Of course she bans books and has mandated the teaching of creation science in public classrooms.  Of course she believes people rode dinosaurs and wears amulets against witches.  Of COURSE she does all these things.  So why waste time fact-checking?

Today’s lie-fest in the BG-D concludes:

As Alaska's governor in 2000, Tony Knowles, put it: "We would never bill the victim of a burglary for finger-printing and photographing the crime scene, or for the cost of gathering other evidence."  But in Wasilla they would, if the crime was rape.

 

And a real newspaper would never print demonstrably untrue attacks about a VP candidate, particularly a woman, if she were a Democrat.