"GOP's Radioactive Anti-Obama Rhetoric"

We are blessed with the freedom to say whatever we want about our president. But those who cast Obama as something other than one of us don’t understand him and don’t understand what it means to be American. E. J. Dionne, Jr.

Nowhere is this more evident than with the GOP candidates who are stomping all over each other to win their party's nomination. Their one unifying theme is to demean the presidency of Obama and to assassinate his character - at whatever costs. Since, by all appearances, they are merely appealing to the basest of their base, the cost will no doubt be highly destructive - not only to the country but to their party as well.

John Avlon, CNN contributor and senior political columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, writes about the civic cost that comes with "the radioactive rhetoric that gets thrown out to excite the conservative crowds." He describes the debates this primary season as being less like Lincoln-Douglas and more akin to the punch-drunk boxing of former heavyweight champion Buster Douglas - entertaining but with some great upsets.

It's not just that the most irresponsible candidates can play to the base and get a boost in the polls, while more sober-minded candidates like Jon Huntsman fail to get attention. The real damage is to the process of running for president itself. Because when low blows get rewarded, the incentive to try to emulate Lincoln -- holding yourself to a higher standard -- is diminished. And one barometer of this atmospheric shift is in the increasingly overheated rhetoric by candidates attacking the current president. This serial disrespect ends up unintentionally diminishing the office of president itself.

Who can forget Newt Gingrich accusing Obama of having a "Kenyan anti-Colonial mindset," or invoking the specter of "Obama's secular socialist machine" and then calling him the "most radical president in American history"? But, as Avlon points out, "accuracy - or even aiming in the general vicinity of truth - isn't the point."

Newt's twisted history is bad enough, but Santorum's sanctimonious religious zealotry - also with a large dab of mythology - is, in the opinion of this writer, far and away outside all bounds of decency.

Rick Santorum raised eyebrows this past weekend for saying Obama wants to impose a "phony theology" on America. Santorum has since tried to clarify that he was not trying to raise doubts about the president's religion and I'll take him at his word. Likewise, when Santorum compares GOP primary voters to members of the "greatest generation" called to act against the rise of Nazi Germany, I'll assume that Santorum isn't intentionally comparing the president to Hitler.

But as Dana Milbank writes, "Rick Santorum sees Nazis everywhere: in the Middle East, in doctor’s offices and medical labs, in the Democratic Party, and now in the White House.

In explaining why his remark over the weekend wasn’t linking Obama to Hitler, Santorum said that “the World War II metaphor is one I’ve used a hundred times.” This is not an exaggeration — and that’s Santorum’s problem.

But way back in a 2008 interview Santorum was already criticizing Obama's "liberal Christianity," saying he didn't believe that sort of ideology exists. That was the same year he gave his now infamous Satan speech at Ave Maria saying, "mainline Protestantism," which is in such "shambles," is not even Christian any longer."

This zealot has obviously had his marching orders for some time, so any denials that he is challenging Obama's faith is disingenuous at best. As Maureen Dowd writes, "Rick Santorum has been called a latter-day Savonarola. That's far too grand. He's more like a small-town mullah."

Even the sober-minded Mitt Romney, according to Avlon, has entered the "hyper-partisan" game:

. . . when Mitt was barnstorming through Florida, a standard part of his stump speech was this: "Sometimes I think we have a president who doesn't understand America." This line was straight out of the "Alien in the White House" playbook, a riff that reinforced the worst impulses of some in the audience, as one woman at a Romney rally named Katheryn Sarka eagerly reaffirmed when I asked her what she thought of the line: "Obama doesn't understand America. He follows George Soros. Obama is against our Constitution and our democracy."

When Mitt gave his victory speech in Nevada, he said, "President Obama demonizes and denigrates almost every sector of our economy." This isn't true, of course, but hey, if it works . . . .

Here's what's most troubling about this trend: It doesn't seem remarkable anymore. For the candidates and many in the press, it is just the new normal, the cost of doing business. The overheated rhetoric simply reflects the conversation that's been going on at the grassroots for a long time.

During the as yet unfinished war on how contraception should be covered by insurance plans, Romney declared, “Unfortunately, possibly because of the people the president hangs around with, and their agenda, their secular agenda — they have fought against religion.” 

Once this kind of rhetoric takes hold and becomes the "new normal," can we as a nation return to a time when there is a more civil playing field and where the contestants observe the rules of decency? Avlon doesn't hold out much hope.

It's naïve to think it will stop when Mr. Obama is no longer president, whether that is in one year or five. Because the next Republican president will inherit the political atmosphere that's been created and find that it is almost impossible to unite the nation absent a crisis. Some Democratic activists will no doubt take a tactical page from recent conservative successes. This cycle of incitement -- where extremes inflame and empower each other -- will make our politics more of an ideological bloodsport and less about actually solving problems.

Perspective is the thing we have least of in our politics these days. But perspective is what the presidency is all about -- rising above divisions and distractions to make long-term decisions in the national interest. By pouring gasoline on an already inflammatory political environment, the GOP presidential candidates not only diminish themselves, they diminish the process of running for president, and make it less likely that they would succeed in uniting the nation if they actually won the office.

I don't think any of this radioactive rhetoric is a surprise to liberal bloggers as we have been observing and writing about it and what can only be described as the thug mentality on the part of the Tea Party element within the GOP since Obama took the oath of office.

Potpourri of Republican Stink

The stench from the Republicans is so bad it's caused one hell of a migraine, so rather than trying to do the impossible right now (research), I've decided to just spread some of the manure.

Indiana Senate  to vote on bill to withdraw from Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health programs.

On Wednesday, a Senate panel approved House Bill 1269, and sent it to the full Senate for a vote. The bill gives Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels the authority to pull Indiana and all of its senior citizens out of Medicare. Indiana could also withdraw from Medicaid and many other federal health programs that primarily help the poor, including Obamacare.

How Rick Santorum ripped off American veterans.

Ironically,  last night I was thinking about how conservatives had been so afraid of and hostile to JFK because he was a Catholic. "He's going to impose Vatican rule," and other such nonsense. Of course, Kennedy never did any such thing. But in Santorum, we see a candidate who most assuredly will do just that - impose the will of the Vatican on the country. It's the basis of his whole campaign and we can see, or should see, it in every thing he says. I don't get it.

Pinal County, AZ Sheriff Paul Babeu exposed by former lover.This is almost getting redundant.

UPDATE: Babeu admits he's gay but denies allegations.

An Islamophobic organization funds an Islamophobic speaker at an Islamophobic church for a police training seminar.

John Guandolo, a former FBI agent and the vice president of the Virginia-based Strategic Engagement Group (SEG), spoke to law enforcement officers in Rutherford County, Tennessee, at the World Outreach Church.

Before the seminar was held, John Cavanaugh, retired Special Agent in Charge of the Nashville, TN office of the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), wrote A New Sheriff Loses His Compass: Muslims Are Not the Enemy for Hatewatch. Sheriff Robert Arnold wasn't paying attention or didn't care or is an Islamophob himself.

A few noteworthy highlights:

Yet there are those who continue to demonize Islam and Muslims because of what terrorist groups like Al Qaeda do and have done. But Al Qaeda and its ilk no more represent Islam than Eric Rudolph, the infamous Olympics bomber and erstwhile “Christian Identity” adherent, represents Christianity. Lest we forget, Al Qaeda is responsible for the murder of thousands upon thousands of Muslims. Responsible law enforcement officers like Sheriff Arnold should have the common sense to be able to tell the difference, and even if they don’t, they certainly should be able to understand the civil rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution.

*****

If this training takes place, how could any Muslim in Rutherford County trust that a sheriff’s deputy coming to his or her aid does not view them as some sort of terrorist, a person whose rights are of no consequence? How could a Muslim there have the confidence to pick up the phone in an emergency and call people who are trained to see them as a dire threat? Trained to believe they have no Constitutional rights? How can Muslims expect that they will be entitled to due process under the law? Equal protection? Equal treatment?

*****

It’s remarkable how bigots always seem to demonize the targeted minority of the day with almost identical language. The targeted minority will rape your women, go after your children, steal your money. They look, dress, talk, act and worship differently than real Americans. They are devious. They want to take over your community. They have secret ways, an agenda, even secret rituals and secret laws. They are not to be trusted.

Sound familiar? This is the foundation of all broad-based movements that hate and demonize others. First, there is fear. Then, the fearful decide a certain group is to blame. The next thing is politicians and others in the public square demagoguing the issue for votes and money. A chorus of groups joins in the attacks, with blog posts, speeches, pamphlets, books and more. Ultimately, the bigots gain traction and try to compromise the police. If they can get police to buy in, they’ve gone a long way to genuinely suppressing the targeted minority.

Lastly, lest we forget about all the voter fraud corrupting our electoral process:

. . . a political aide to Maryland’s former Republican Governor is sentenced to 30 days home detention for his conspiracy to keep black voters away from the polls in what was described as “deceitful” and an attempt to “interfere with anyone’s opportunity to vote that it’s absolutely unacceptable.”

Evidence is mounting that the vote totals for the Maine caucuses, in which Mitt Romney edged out Ron Paul, were pretty messed up. In addition to towns that hadn't voted yet, others' totals were not recorded. Remember Iowa.

Virginia officials confirm criminal election investigation of Gingrich campaign.

Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White was found guilty early Saturday morning of felony voter fraud charges.

Ironic, don't you think, coming from the party which has been screaming the loudest about voter fraud? If they can't be depended upon to hold honest caucuses and primaries within their own ranks, just imagine what these bandits are going to pull come election day in November.

"The Right-Wing Id Unzipped" by Mike Lofgren

I have been criticized, even by friends on the left, for equating the events over the last couple of years to the rise of fascism in 1930s Germany. This article validates my claims. Maybe this should give me some deep personal satisfaction, but it doesn't. It's just too damn frightening.

The author is retired Republican House and Senate staffer Mike Lofgren, who wrote an equally superb article called, " Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult." This latest piece just appeared in Truthout.

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)

Although Mitt Romney used the word "conservative" 19 times in a short speech at the February 10, 2012, Conservative Political Action Conference, the audience he used this word to appeal to was not conservative by any traditional definition. It was right wing. Despite the common American practice of using "conservative" and "right wing" interchangeably, right wing is not a synonym for conservative and not even a true variant of conservatism - although the right wing will opportunistically borrow conservative themes as required.

Right-wingers have occasioned much recent comment. Theirbehavior in the Republican debates has caused even jaded observers to react like an Oxford don stumbling upon a tribe of headhunting cannibals. In those debates where the moderators did not enforce decorum, these right-wingers, the Republican base, behaved with a single lack of dignity. For a group that displays its supposed pro-life credentials like a neon sign, the biggest applause lines resulted from their hearing about executions or the prospect of someone dying without health insurance.

Who are these people and what motivates them? To answer, one must leave the field of conventional political theory and enter the realm of psychopathology. Three books may serve as field guides to the farther shores of American politics and the netherworld of the true believer.

Most estimates calculate the percentage of Republican voters who are religious fundamentalists at around 40 percent; in some key political contests, such as the Iowa caucuses, the percentage is closer to 60. Because of their social cohesion, ease of political mobilization and high election turnout, fundamentalists have political weight even beyond their raw numbers. An understanding of their leaders, infrastructure and political goals is warranted. Max Blumenthal has done the work in his book "Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party." Blumenthal investigates politicized fundamentalism and provides capsule bios of such movement luminaries as James Dobson, Tony Perkins, John Hagee and Ted Haggard. The reader will conclude that these authority figures and the flocks they command are driven by a binary, Manichean vision of life and a hunger for conflict. Their minds appear to have no more give and take than that of a terrier staring down a rat hole.

Blumenthal examines the childhoods of these religious-right celebrities and reveals a significant quotient of physical and mental abuse suffered at the hands of parents. His analysis of the obvious sadomasochistic element in Mel Gibson's films - so lionized by the right wing - is enough to give one the creeps. But the book is by no means a uniformly depressing slog: the chapter titled "Satan in a Porsche," about fundamentalist attempts to ban pornography, approaches slapstick.

According to the author, the inner life of fundamentalist true believers is the farthest thing from that of a stuffily proper Goody Two Shoes. They seem tormented by demons that those in the reality-based community scarcely experience. That may explain their extraordinary latitude in absolving their political and ecclesiastical heroes of their sins: while most of us might regard George W. Bush as a dry drunk resentful of his father, Newt Gingrich as a sociopathic serial adulterer and Ted Haggard as a pathetic specimen in terminal denial, their followers on the right apparently believe that the greater the sin, the more impressive the salvation - so long as the magic words are uttered and the penitent sinner is washed in the Blood of the Lamb. This explains why people like Gingrich can attend "values voter" forums and both he and the audience manage to keep straight faces. Far from being a purpose-driven life, the existence of many true believers is a crisis-driven life that seeks release, as Blumenthal asserts, in an "escape from freedom."

An observer of the right-wing phenomenon must explain the paradox of followers who would escape from freedom even as they incessantly invoke the word freedom as if it were a mantra. But freedom so defined does not mean ordinary civil liberties like the prohibition of illegal government search and seizure, the right of due process, or the right not to be tortured. The hard right has never protested the de facto abrogation of much of the Bill of Rights during the last decade. In the right-wing id, freedom is the emotional release that a hostile and psychologically repressed person feels when he is finally able to lash out at the objects of his resentment. Freedom is his prerogative to rid himself of people who are different, or who unsettle him. Freedom is merging into a like-minded herd. Right-wing alchemy transforms freedom into authoritarianism.

Robert Altemeyer, a Canadian psychologist, has done extensive testing to isolate and describe the traits of the authoritarian personality. His results are distilled in his book "The Authoritarians." He describes religious fundamentalists, the core of the right-wing Republican base, as follows:

They are highly submissive to established authority, aggressive in the name of that authority and conventional to the point of insisting everyone should behave as their authorities decide. They are fearful and self-righteous and have a lot of hostility in them that they readily direct toward various out-groups. They are easily incited, easily led, rather un-inclined to think for themselves, largely impervious to facts and reason and rely instead on social support to maintain their beliefs. They bring strong loyalty to their in-groups, have thick-walled, highly compartmentalized minds, use a lot of double standards in their judgments, are surprisingly unprincipled at times and are often hypocrites.

There are tens of millions of Americans who, although personally lacking the self-confidence, ambition and leadership qualities of authoritarian dominators like Gingrich or Sarah Palin, nevertheless empower the latter to achieve their goals while finding psychological fulfillment in subordination to a cause. Altemeyer describes these persons as authoritarian followers. They are socially rigid, highly conventional and strongly intolerant personalities, who, absent any self-directed goals, seek achievement and satisfaction by losing themselves in a movement greater than themselves. One finds them overrepresented in reactionary political movements, fundamentalist sects and leader cults like scientology. They are the people who responded on cue when Bush's press secretary said after the 9/11 attacks that people had better "watch what they say;" or who approved of illegal surveillance because "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear;" or who, after months of news stories saying that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, nevertheless believed the weapons were found. Altemeyer said:

Probably about 20 to 25 percent of the adult American population is so right-wing authoritarian, so scared, so self-righteous, so ill-informed and so dogmatic that nothing you can say or do will change their minds. They would march America into a dictatorship and probably feel that things had improved as a result.... And they are so submissive to their leaders that they will believe and do virtually anything they are told. They are not going to let up and they are not going away.

Twenty to 25 percent is no majority, but enough to swing an election, especially since the authoritarian follower is more easily organized than the rest of the population. As for Altemeyer's warning that such personality types "are not going away," the rise of the Tea Party after 2008 showed that he was a better prognosticator than Max Blumenthal, who thought the radical takeover of the GOP during the Bush presidency had "shattered the party."

Altemeyer cites clinical data to show us how certain people score high on psychological tests measuring authoritarian traits and that these high scores strongly correlate with right-wing political preferences. What Altemeyer is lacking is a satisfactory explanation as to why a significant percentage of human beings should develop these traits. We obtain some clues in Wilhelm Reich's "The Mass Psychology of Fascism," written in 1933 and unfortunately only obtainable in a stilted 1945 translation full of odd psychological jargon. One does not have to agree with Reich's questionable later career path and personal eccentricities(1) to notice that his 1933 work is a perceptive analysis of the character of the authoritarian political movements that were rising in Europe. Anyone reading it then and taking it seriously could have predicted the new totalitarian regimes' comprehensive repressiveness, extreme intolerance and, within a few years, nihilistic destructiveness.

Reich appears to see fascism as the political manifestation of an authoritarian psychology. Who are the authoritarians?

Fascist mentality is the mentality of the subjugated "little man" who craves authority and rebels against it at the same time. It is not by accident that all fascist dictators stem from the milieu of the little reactionary man. The captains of industry and the feudal militarist make use of this social fact for their own purposes. A mechanistic authoritarian civilization only reaps, in the form of fascism, from the little, suppressed man what for hundreds of years it has sown in the masses of little, suppressed individuals in the form of mysticism, top-sergeant mentality and automatism.

Here again we see the paradoxical nature of the authoritarian personality: rebelling against authority while hungering for it - exactly as the contemporary right wing fancies it is rebelling against big government while calling for intrusive social legislation and militarism. In the midst of dire economic circumstances, why do they expend inordinate energy brooding over contraception, abortion, abstinence education, gay marriage and so forth and attempt to transform their obsessions into law? Reich said:

The formation of the authoritarian structure takes place through the anchoring of sexual inhibition and sexual anxiety.... The result of this process is fear of freedom and a conservative, reactionary mentality. Sexual repression aids political reaction not only through this process which makes the mass individual passive and unpolitical but also by creating in his structure an interest in actively supporting the authoritarian order. The suppression of natural sexual gratification leads to various kinds of substitute gratifications. Natural aggression, for example, becomes brutal sadism which then is an essential mass-psychological factor in imperialistic wars.

According to Reich, a patriarchal, sexually repressive family life, reinforced by strict and punitive religious dogma, is the "factory" of a reactionary political order. Hence, the right wing's ongoing attempts to erase the separation of church and state, its crusade against Planned Parenthood, its strange obsession with gays. Consider the following political platform, which sounds almost as if it were taken from a speech by Rick Santorum:

The preservation of the family with many children is a matter of biological concept and national feeling. The family with many children must be preserved ... because it is a highly valuable, indispensable part of the ... nation. Valuable and indispensable not only because it alone guarantees the maintenance of the population in the future but because it is the strongest basis of national morality and national culture ... The preservation of this family form is a necessity of national and cultural politics ... This concept is strictly at variance with the demands for an abolition of paragraph 218; it considers unborn life as sacrosanct. For the legalization of abortion is at variance with the function of the family, which is to produce children and would lead to the definite destruction of the family with many children.

So wrote the Völkischer Beobachter of October 14, 1931. As Altemeyer warns, they are not going away: certain psychological constructs and the political expressions they give rise to, persist over time and across cultures.

1. E.g., Isaac Newton's eccentricities and unpleasant personality did not invalidate his mathematics. We are interested in the message not the messenger.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Susan G. Komen Foundation: The Fallout That Just Keeps Falling Out and Handel as the Sacrificial Lamb (2)

Oftentimes after a major development, I wait until the smoke settles before sifting through the ashes to uncover where the blaze started, but the raging forest fire that began with the Susan G. Komen Foundation's (SGK) decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) can't be contained. This is due in large measure to SGK's own founder and CEO Nancy G. Brinker who has flamed the fires every time she's opened her mouth. Duplicity, hypocrisy and lies do have a tendency to blow up in one's face, leaving a firestorm of gigantic proportions in its wake.

This is the lead paragraph from when I started writing this piece a couple of days ago, but at this point, any fuel I might add to the fire would just be anticlimactic and more than a little redundant. There are a few issues, however, that are important enough (at least to me) to bear repeating, not the least of which is SGK's tilt toward the right-to-life-until-birth belief, which has in fact been driving this organization for some years now.

Anytime a huge corporatist charity with total revenues of $357,832,083 (and which compensates its CEO to the tune of $417,171) catches its pants on fire, charitable minded souls grab their shovels and start digging. For the past week, the Internet has been a veritable goldmine of revelations about the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, which became the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure when it changed and trademarked its name in 2007. So, besides providing $680,000 in grant monies to PPFA for breast health services, SGK spends over a million bucks a year suing lesser known charities for trademark infringement.

So far, Komen has identified and filed legal trademark oppositions against more than a hundred of these Mom and Pop charities, including Kites for a Cure, Par for The Cure, Surfing for a Cure and Cupcakes for a Cure--and many of the organizations are too small and underfunded to hold their ground.

Excuses, Excuses

The first excuse CEO Brinker gave for slashing PPFA behind the knees in a sneak attack with a machete was that the foundation's "new" rules prevented providing grant monies to organizations that were under federal investigation. The sheer hypocrisy of this flimflam excuse is highlighted by Daily Kos:

The most obvious grant that highlighted Komen's hypocrisy was the $7.5 million to Penn State (Penn State is under federal investigation for its role in a sexual abuse scandal). Others were just as embarrassing. Days before the Komen scandal erupted, the USDA announced it launched an investigation into Harvard's treatment of primates in its research labs. The Education Department had just announced an investigation into whether Harvard discriminated against Asian-Americans in its undergraduate admissions policies. Meanwhile, two members of Komen's prestigious Scientific Advisory Board work at Harvard, while Harvard Medical School and the affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute received over a million dollars in Komen funding.

From Komen-funded hospitals being investigated for Medicare fraud (example) to Komen-funded universities being investigated for civil rights violations, it became immediately apparent that the "local, state or federal investigation" prohibition cast a shadow over a substantial portion of Komen's good work. Within hours of the scandal breaking, it was clear Komen needed a new excuse.

And Brinker managed to contrive a couple of more disingenuous excuses when she appeared on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" and "proclaimed that the real reason Komen cut off almost all grants to Planned Parenthood was because 'many of the grants were education-oriented. We don't need to do that kind of education anymore' (watch the video here)."

As if that wasn't flimmmy-flammy enough, Brinker added:

“It was nothing they were doing wrong,” Brinker said of Planned Parenthood. “We have decided not to fund, wherever possible, pass-through grants. We were giving them money; they were sending women out for mammograms. What we would like to have are clinics where we can directly fund mammograms.”

Well now, I've yet to have a doctor feel my boobies and then walk me into an adjacent room for a mammography. I've always been referred to a breast center for an appointment, usually within a hospital, that specializes in and has the expensive equipment required to photograph the deepest recesses of my bosooms.

The absurdity of Brinker's claims are proven by Georgia Logothetis in this same article for Daily Kos. She took the most recent filings with the IRS and "put the grant data from both Komen's Parent and Group filings into public spreadsheets here and here. The classifications of "education," "treatment," "research" and "screening" are Komen's own grant classifications."

This morning, the Washington Post printed a letter from Nancy Brinker where she apologized and admitted, "I have made some mistakes." You have indeed, Mrs. Brinker but you've lost all credibility at this point.

So, Who Lit the First Spark?

If you're thinking the dreadful Karen Handel, you're thinking only partly right. Yes, she is indeed dreadful, but no, she didn't start the fire. In Part 1, I wrote:

As in all non-profit organizations, the board of directors exists to oversee and direct its operations. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens, without their approval and the approval of its CEO, who in this case just happens to be its founder Nancy G. Brinker.

Handel has resigned as Senior Vice President for Public Policy but she never should have been hired in the first place - a decision that was made on the part of Brinker and the board. No doubt, Handel's campaign promise to defund Planned Parenthood as she ran for (and lost) the governorship of Georgia was very attractive to Brinker, who is herself a devoted pro-life-until-birth advocate.

Brinker has given big bucks "to Republican candidates and committees, including anti-abortion politicians such as President George W. Bush and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., according to Federal Election Commission records."

Before there was a Karen Handel, there was Eve Sanchez Silver, a charter member of The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation's National Hispanic/Latina Advisory Council. Silver resigned in 2004 when she learned that "some of SGK's local chapters gave money to PPFA affiliates to pay for breast exams for low-income women."

“You cannot be a life-affirming organization in league with an organization that kills people,” Silver said.

What this right-to-life-until-birth nonentity is really saying is that fetuses must be protected so that women, poor or otherwise, can die from breast cancer later in life. After leaving Komen, Silver's new mission became putting pressure on Komen to defund Planned Parenthood, which she and her minions did with gusto over the years - in part by threatening to boycott the events and to stop frequenting the businesses that sponsor them.

When Stearns began his bogus investigation last September, this paved the way for abortion opponents to increase their pressure on SGK. It also offered Handel a golden opportunity but she no doubt had help in board member Jane Abraham.

. . . Komen board member Jane Abraham is anti-choice. She is also the general chairman of the Susan B. Anthony list, a group known for their anti-choice stance as well as their influence within the Republican party. Abraham helps direct the Nurturing Network, a global network of pregnancy crisis centers famous for spreading false medical information and using coercion and intimidation to force women not to undergo abortions. Maureen Scalia, wife of rabidly anti-choice supreme court justice, Anthony Scalia, is also on the board of Nurturing Network.

The bottom line is that SGK had been bowing to and actively courting the pro-life-until-death forces for years. While it may have been Handel's proposal to insert a "new" rule denying grant monies to organizations that were under federal investigation, it was the CEO and the board of directors who approved it.

You know what is really amazing - and very telling - to me? Brinker has been quoted time and again as being "stunned" by the reaction from the media, politicians and Planned Parenthood supporters. She was "stunned?" Just how insular can a person be?

If the foundation ever hopes to polish its tarnished reputation, they need to clean house - starting at the top and working across the board.

Susan G. Komen Foundation: Is There a Cure for Its Brand of Cancer? (1)

Whew! I don't think in their wildest imaginations a team of the best script writers in the world could have dreamed up such a plot. Mind boggling stupidity and political suicide combine to create a major public relations nightmare of gigantic proportions. In a scene spanning just a few hours, the Susan G. Komen Foundation (SGK) went from wearing pink ribbons to wrapping itself in black shrouds. I've never seen cancer spread so fast.

Enter the Americans United for Life (AUL) - until birth - which has been pressuring SGK to sever their ties with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) because of all those abortions they perform - a whopping three percent of their total services. The fact is, PPFA devotes most of its money and manpower to screening for breast, cervical and testicular cancers, treating menopause, testing for and treating sexually transmitted diseases, and providing contraception and prenatal care.

The money provided by Susan G. Komen for the Cure went to just a fraction -- about 19 according to one report -- of Planned Parenthood's more than 85 affiliates. And it was all -- roughly $680,000 last year and $580,000 the year before that -- used for breast-cancer screening and other breast-health services for low-income, uninsured, and under-insured women.

Last September, Rep. Cliff Stearns, bowing to right-to-life-until-birth lobbying efforts, launched his spurious investigation of PPFA to determine whether public money had been spent on abortions over the last decade.

Interestingly, this investigation just happened to coincide with a brand spanking new rule at SGK which forbids them from donating to any organization that is under local, state or federal investigation. Smell anything yet?

Then the fates (or was it God's will) intervened on behalf of those right-to-life-until-birth folks in the person of Karen Handel, SGK's new (as of April 2011) Senior Vice President for Public Policy. Writes Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel:

Karen Handel, who was endorsed by Sarah Palin during her unsuccessful bid for governor of Georgia in 2010, has been the Foundation's Senior Vice President for Public Policy since April 2011. During her gubernatorial candidacy, she ran on an anti-choice platform, vowing that if elected, she'd defund Planned Parenthood. Handel wrote on her campaign blog,

"I will be a pro-life governor who will work tirelessly to promote a culture of life in Georgia…. I believe that each and every unborn child has inherent dignity, that every abortion is a tragedy, and that government has a role, along with the faith community, in encouraging women to choose life in even the most difficult of circumstances…. since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood."

She even promised to eliminate funding for breast and cervical cancer screenings provided by the organization.

Obviously, the confluence of the AUL, Stearns' specious investigation and the hiring of Handel just didn't happen by happenstance. Nope. As in all non-profit organizations, the board of directors exists to oversee and direct its operations. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens, without their approval and the approval of its CEO, who in this case just happens to be its founder Nancy G. Brinker.

The reaction to Komen's announcement that they were severing their not-too-cozy ties with Planned Parenthood was swift and it was angry and it was loud - a public relations disaster for SGK and a boon for PPFA. The Susan G. Komen Foundation, which cannot be distinguished from the Race for the Cure, shot itself in one foot with a double-barrel shotgun with this decision and then shot itself in the other by lying, further damaging its credibility.

For how long is anyone's guess but I suspect no amount of damage control is ever going to win back the hearts and dollars of lost donors or attract a huge new donor base. There just aren't enough right-to-life-until-born believers to support them in the style to which they've grown accustomed.

Out of every evil comes some good, however. After the story broke early Tuesday evening, it went viral on Facebook and Twitter, proving that sometimes, at least, these social networks can produce a chain reaction that is both awesome and heartwarming.

Within 24 hours, donors had contributed $650,000 to Planned Parenthood, "nearly enough to replace last year's Komen funding." $400,000 was raised by more than 6,000 donors and donations are still coming in.

The group also launched a Breast Health Emergency Fund to ensure funding to affiliates that will lose their Komen grants. That fund received a $250,000 gift from the family foundation of Dallas philanthropist Lee Fikes and his wife, Amy.

Planned Parenthood allies flooded the Komen Facebook page and other online message boards to express their anger and frustration. Komen, in a lame attempt that is disingenuous at best, is offering up a menu of lies and deception to try to stem the criticism. But most folks are having none of it, including the president of the Connecticut chapter who expressed her dismay on its Facebook page.

Many commenters on Facebook have complained that Komen is scrubbing some of the more negative comments from its wall, but a spokesperson for Komen said the organization is only deleting the profane ones. 

"We have not and do not scrub negative comments from Facebook unless they include profanity," said Leslie Aun, vice president of communications for Komen. "There have been some serious misrepresentations of our position, which is unfortunate. The level of interest reflects the fact that people care deeply about breast cancer and women's health issues."

This, my friends, is just another lie, to which I and many others can attest.

The main sentiment among the thousands of people posting online seems to be that regardless of one's position on the issue of abortion, it is wrong to politicize women's health. According to a new Polipulse analysis of online conversations about the issue, only 26 percent of people believe Komen made the right decision. Nearly a quarter of the people who expressed criticism of Komen's decision online said they were going to pull their donations from Komen.

Like Southern Beale in her rant Take Your Pink Ribbon & Shove It, I have no words but I share her anger toward SGK and the right-to-life-until-birth believers. "You’d rather grown, adult women die of undiagnosed breast cancer because a principle is more important than a person."  Also read her First They Came For Susan G. Komen . . . 

To quote my own comment after an excellent post at Progressive Eruptions:

Disgusted. Outraged. Pissed. None of these adjectives suffice.

Stay tuned. More to come.

UPDATE: As everyone, including blind, deaf and senile old Aunt Sally, probably knows, Nancy Brinker has apologized and said SGK will continue funding PPFA. Part 2, in an unintended change of direction, will look at the apology that isn't and why readers might be justified at feeling just a tad skeptical about Komen's sudden reversal.