One step forward, two steps back (via):
Yesterday, ThinkProgress exclusively reported Ari Fleischer’s involvement — dating back at least to December — with the Komen Foundation, including issues related to Planned Parenthood. Tonight, the Washington Post reports that Komen is now publicly confirming that Fleischer, a prominent right-wing pundit and former press secretary for George W. Bush, will help “on crisis communications” related to Planned Parenthood. Komen stressed that Fleischer, who is a long-time critic of Planned Parenthood, “had nothing to do with the funding decision.”
This is so dumb, I don’t even know what to make of it. Fleischer was an incredibly divisive Press Secretary.
jayboat
facepalm
Scott
Of course he had nothing to do with the decision. No one had anything to do with the decision. NO ONE. Otherwise, they’d have to fire a right-winger. Can’t go firing right-wingers, they’re supposed to fail upwards…
Irving
…I think I’m missing the “step forward” bit here. More classic conservative double-down, in all the wrong ways, again.
Southern Beale
On a related note, I’m sure y’all heard Ron Paul talk about how a woman can get a shot of estrogen if she’s the victim of “an honest rape.”
Yes. This is now the Libertarian hope for America. Rolling the clock back to the days of “honest rape.”
Brian R.
Maybe Fleischer can revive one of his greatest hits and advise the asshats at Komen to “watch what you say and watch what you do” from here on out.
beltane
Be careful what you say about the pink ribbon or the terrorists will win…
You’re either with Susan G. Komen or your’re with the terrorists…
Bullsmith
Fleischer can’t help but seek conflict, it’s in his nature. During the period between 9/11 and Iraq the admin received complete deference and support from the media and most of the population, really. Instead of taking advantage of that, Ari was a complete bully dick. Rather than demand loyalty he’d issue threats (people should be careful what they say), rather than win people over he’d force them to back down, insult them. His only friendly mode is when he makes buddy-buddy with one guy to put down someone else. Really, for a non-political medical charity to want to let Ari get involved in a major scandal is astounding. I guess the message is we’re going full-on partisan, but we’re going to keep loudly insisting that it’s people who care about breast cancer that are politicizing women’s health.
The whole way Komen has dealt with PP and the ensuing outcry really is a classic Bush-era operation. “Fuck you. I’m sorry did I insult you? Go fuck yourself, please. Is that better?”
scav
What part of they apparently want divisive is still unclear? It’s requiring harder and harder hits of the drug and toots on the whistles to get the dogs out. We’ll ignore for the moment they’re trying nearby to whip the dogs back into lock-step submission: multi-tasking may not figure in the skill toolbox.
beltane
@Southern Beale: “Honest rape” just sounds so wholesome, doesn’t it? Makes you miss the good old days when men were men, women were women, and rape was honest.
Princess
So Komen is basically just another version of wingnut welfare.
And a question: Why are these Republican Jews getting so embroiled in this PP and abortion stuff? I thought they were basically agnostic on abortion.
cathyx
Failure is always rewarded in republican circles.
Josie
“Honest rape” sounds like a phrase straight out of Ayn Rand’s vocabulary. What a stand up manly man he is.
beltane
@Princess: Right-wing Jews do not care about abortion at all. They care about power. If abortion wasn’t such a handy tool to manipulate the dumbass portion of America, they wouldn’t trouble themselves at all with it.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
It’s all about pissing off the libs, Doug. That’s the only way you can prove yourself (especially to the media) that you’re a real honest-to-god American worthy of representing the flag. If you don’t hate libs, hippies, and Democrats enough, then you’re not American and have to be destroyed.
Amir Khalid
There is no mystery here. Susan G. Komen For The Cure has already dropped all but a token pretense of political neutrality. The public has figured out what it really is, so there’s no harm left to be done by appointing a political fellow traveler like Ari Fleischer. Ari’s just going to shit the bed some more, PR-wise; but there’s so much shit there already, it’s not like anyone will notice the extra.
Egg Berry
Ari Fleischer. well, well, well, couldn’t have happened to a better douchebag.
da
I heard an interview with Ari, and he happens to be a personal friend and neighbor of Brinker, so …
And beltane @13, that is not nice to say. Not sure that I disagree though.
Bort
Right, because hiring a “long-time critic” to do your PR makes so much sense.
JGabriel
DougJ @ Top:
I think Nancy Brinker is succumbing to a heretofore unrevealed masochistic streak as she gets her freak on in her later years:
“Hi, Ari? Yeah, I just did something bad, and I want the whole world to condemn me, mock me, and hate my guts. Can you help me with that?”
Let’s face it. If that’s what you really want, there’s probably no one in the world who can deliver it better than Ari Fleischer.
.
Mark B
Off topic, but listening to Newt Gingrich, I’m getting the idea of ‘religious liberty’ he has is that if a religious organization is subject to any laws whatsoever, it’s an infringement on ‘religious liberty’. For example, arresting pedophile priests is an affront to the Catholic Church being able to conduct its affairs without the interference of the government. Okay, that last part was just an inference, but it follows from what he said.
Tim I
Any organization would be foolish to continue to employ Ari. Look at that brilliant plan he designed to cut off Planned Parenthood. Since that worked out so well, Komen is lucky to still have him on the payroll. His phone must be ringing off the hook with job offers from other charities looking to downsize.
Gretchen
I read that he was involved in the interview process when they hired the anti-PP VP in the first place, and specifically asked applicants how they thought PP should be handled. He was in on this mess from the ground floor.
JGabriel
beltane:
Too late. The feminazi libtard commie atheist Islamofacist socia1ist terrorists won: SGK apologized.
Wingnuts hate — hatehatehatehateHATE — apologies. Doesn’t matter if it’s a lie, which it probably is in this case, they still hate it. So SGK has lost both sides of the same argument. Admittedly, that’s kind of special.
.
kdaug
You know, after a bit of reflection on John’s last post, I was trying to think of the things I hate.
I’m coming up blank.
beltane
@JGabriel: It is kind of special. And it takes a very special person of Ari Fleischer’s genius to guide an organization to a place where it is hated by both blue America and red America.
Brian R.
@Mark B:
Yep. As others have noted here, if the churches don’t like the restrictions of the government, there’s a very simple solution — they can stop taking government money. That money comes from all taxpayers, and therefore needs to be available to all taxpayers. If churches don’t want to employ gays and lesbians, or dispense birth control, fine, then stop taking the government money.
For all the complaints about how the mean old federal government has these poor churches in shackles, no one seems to notice that the churches happily slipped on the cuffs themselves and they have the key in their own hands.
fasteddie9318
OT, but “This Week” today managed the Holy Grail of all Sunday morning talk shows, assembling a panel that actually makes the viewer dumber for having watched it. Kudos to George and all the gang there at ABC.
JPL
Nancy Brinker and crew are not politicizing their message just because they are hiring politicians.
RalfW
The reason that Republicans think government sucks is because they suck so hard at governing. And at any career after governing.
“Heck of a job, Brownie!”
Jennifer
I’ll just note the obvious:
It’s a bit strange for a non-political organization, as Brinker declared SGK to be in both the interview with Andrea Mitchell and in her walk-back press release, to hire a well-known partisan political spin man to clean up a problem that arose because of what looked like political partisanship on the part of that non-political organization.
You wouldn’t expect an organization that promotes itself as dedicated to women’s concerns to have a dick, but this one clearly does, because they keep stepping all over it.
Waldo
From Think Progress…
SGK and Ari can’t even get this part of their stories straight! Losers.
Felinious Wench
Never interrupt your enemy when (s)he is making a mistake.
batgirl
@beltane:
Yep! Even if the price to control the rubes is to overturn Roe v. Wade, they would be okay with that because, after all, the illegality of abortion wouldn’t affect them or their children. They’d still have the money and resources to get a an abortion if necessary. IGMFU
Jewish Steel
It’s the mentality that put up those, “Miss me yet?” billboards 6 months after Obama’s inauguration.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@fasteddie9318:
In other words, they finally just blackballed Krugman and made no other changes?
Villago Delenda Est
Fleischer is the sort of human garbage we disposed of at Nürnberg in 1946.
beltane
@Jewish Steel: It is the mentality of a dog who thinks it’s well-hidden because she has stuck her head under the bed and is oblivious to the fact that the rest of her body is exposed. Righties have so lost the ability to see the world outside their bubble that they don’t even know how to do a good cover-up anymore.
Villago Delenda Est
@Southern Beale:
It’s typical of the true agenda of “LIbertarians”…neo-feudalism.
Libertarianism has as much to do with liberty as National Socia1ism does with socia1ism, or the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea does with democracy.
SmoovP
Let me see if I got this straight…
Phase One: Help create divisive, brand-killing political policy for a presumably apolitical charity
Phase Two: Sit back and watch as brand implodes – then offer to do damage control for said charity
Phase Three: PROFIT!
That my friends, is Trolling, Winning, Wingnut Welfare and a successful business plan all rolled into one.
I have to say, I’m impressed.
GregB
The SKG Foundation needs to get a friendly non-partisan face out front. Perhaps Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh or maybe Hank Williams Jr. and Ted Nugent.
Anya
@Brian R.: They are aided by Catholic “Journalists” who constantly harp on about how the Catholic vote is very important. Tweedy had Melinda Henneberger and Melissa Rogers from Brookings Institute on his show to discuss “Obama’s breach of faith over contraceptive ruling.” All three were yapping about how Obama betrayed the Catholics who supported him and how he’s forcing the Church to go against its own teachings. And how he was throwing those Catholic leaders who went to bat for him during the health care fight under the bus. It was disgusting to watch.
Pongo
Again, this is a governance issue. One colossal PR blunder after another–all unforced errors. Even donors who agree with the rightwing politicizing of Komen should seriously consider the wisdom of giving money to an org that seems hellbent on inflicting unnecessary wounds on itself. Unless these donors are okay with their breast cancer dollars actually going to support increasing fees for ‘crisis management’ and attorneys instead (which is possible–there’s no explaining the wingnut mind), they won’t be getting much bang for their buck.
Nutella
The publicity about Komen is great. They claim to be non-political but hire people because of their right wing politics. They claim to be a grassroots organization, and a few of their supporters still believe that, but what kind of grassroots organization pays its chief $500K and hires former federal and state politicians?
They’ve always been a machine for getting rich off private donations but they’re not clever enough to keep their political shenanigans hidden so they can keep running the scam.
Bruce S
With Ari Fleischer doing the PR, what could go wrong? Our confidence in Komen could be further bolstered if they hired Arthur Anderson to do the accounting and Jack Abramoff to represent their interests on Capitol Hill. Oh yeah – make sure that Bernie Madoff is in charge of any funds they have allocated to generate long-term income.
JPL
@Bruce S: nice
FlipYrWhig
@Anya: I don’t know why anything and everything affiliated with or launched by Catholics has suddenly become an adjunct of The Church. Fuck that. Isn’t that like making writers for the Christian Science Monitor unable to go to the doctor, because of “conscience”?
beltane
@Nutella: Even before all of this broke, I would never in a million years have considered the slick, uber-corporate SGK to be “grassroots” in any way, shape or form. If the Komen Foundation is grassroots, I’d hate to think of what a not-grassroots charity looks like.
Nutella
@Brian R.:
Please stop repeating this. It’s WRONG. The issue has nothing to do with anyone taking government money. All employers, including Catholic institutions other than the churches themselves, must offer preventive care including birth control in their health insurance plans.
The law applies to all employers and has nothing to do with anyone taking public money for anything.
The bishops are still idiots, though. All individual Catholics are perfectly free to make whatever moral decisions about their own use of birth control they wish to make. No one is forcing birth control on anybody.
The vast majority of Catholic women do use birth control, of course, but the government isn’t going to be forcing them to make that decision.
People are moral actors. Churches aren’t.
amk
@Bruce S: rethug motif – when in error, double down.
beltane
@Nutella: The RC Church claims the authority to damn Catholic women who use contraception to hell for all eternity. Why then are they bitching about a government insurance regulation?
Nutella
@beltane:
Heh. Good point. They already have a much bigger hammer!
Villago Delenda Est
@beltane:
Perhaps because they know in their heart of hearts that Hell (and the authority to damn people to it) is a lie?
Nah. Can’t be that.
Gust Avrakotos
Clearly this will go a long way to restoring the trust that Komen is not the right wing political organization the left wing media is making them out to be……../snark off.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bruce S:
I think what you’ve got there is a solid business plan, in the Enron/AGI/Lehman Brothers tradition of solid business plans.
NCSteve
Divisive, yes but a brazen pathological liar. Which seems to be a qualification for the job they’ve put him in.
Comrade Mary
Ron Paul: note that the woman who was “honestly raped” must get a shot of estrogen instead of a handful of birth control pills, which is the modern approach to emergency contraception in the first 72 hours. A little pain and punishment with your treatment, madam?
Karen in GA
To be fair, given Ari Fleischer’s post-WH resume, that this whole thing with Komen became such a clusterfuck is surprising. After all, Fleischer and his PR firm were also involved in Mark McGwire’s steroids promo tour a while back, and he also did PR for Tiger Woods.
Really. Hoocoodanode?
chrome agnomen
@kdaug:
i hear you. it’s an emotion i can’t find in me. that said, i think i could push them all off the edge of their flat earth without feeling any emotion whatsoever except maybe relief, and satisfaction in a job well done
SW
This is from the Onion right? Those guys are hilarious.