Cecile Richards, head of Planned Parenthood, just took the stage here at Take Back America and really got the audience going talking about how dangerous it was that another Supreme Court judge might be appointed who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. She brought everyone to their feet talking about how progressive needed to get active in electoral politics to preserve a woman’s right too choose.
Well, almost everyone.
I’d like to resurrect a post I wrote almost two years ago to the day after Planned Parenthood, under Richards’ leadership, endorsed Joe "Short Ride" Lieberman (member of the Gang of 14 who put Samuel Alito on the bench) over his pro-choice opponent Ned Lamont:
An Open Letter to Democrats From Planned Parenthood
Howdy y’all!
I know there were a few raised eyebrows over our recent endorsement of Joe Lieberman for the US Senate over his solidly pro-choice opponent, Ned Lamont, especially given Joe’s recent comments telling rape victims to take a
hikeshort ride. While this no doubt raised concern among some, we know that it probably gave great comfort to many of you who cower before the threat posed to your re-election by extreme fundamentalists. We just wanted you to know that this is our way of saying "we’re there for you."From now on, even if 74% of Catholics in your state think that publicly funded hospitals should be required to provide emergency contraception to women who have just been brutally raped, we just want you to know that it’s okay to suck up to Catholic League nutjobs like Bill Donohue and Kate O’Beirne. We are open for business and will rubber stamp your pro-choice bona fides anyway, and promise to make absolutely no mention of any of this when we endorse you. You’ll be openly bragging about what a great friend you are to women in no time.
Worried that your cloture vote to put anti-Roe right wing extremists like Samuel Alito on the bench will be held against you? Fear not! We don’t even count cloture votes in our helpful scorecard. Hell, you can cast a meaningless floor vote against him the next day and we’ll tell our
markssupporters to drop you a thank-you note! It’s the least we can do.And as for those lovely license plates — you know, those official "choose life" abominations that are used to fund fake pregnancy counseling centers outside real Planned Parenthood offices, one of the favorite ways anti-choice groups make inroads into blue states — feel free to pimp those too. Christ, with all the deceptive smear campaigning a fella’s gotta do these days to get elected, you’ve got to maintain your reputation as a sanctimonious blowhard somehow.
No, as long as you’re willing to show up at our fundraisers and make sure the money keeps flowing, we’ll gladly turn our backs on women who might actually be knowledgeable and concerned about what’s going on in your state, much like Susan Yolen, head of CT-Planned Parenthood, who voted as a delegate for Ned Lamont at the Democratic convention in June. People like her obviously do not understand how important people like you are, and they certainly don’t appreciate the vital need to kiss your ring and offer you up the protection you need to make sure your incumbency is preserved.
We want you to know we have only begun to plumb the depths of what we’re willing to do to insure that the threats to choice in this country persist and the cash register keeps churning. Screw all the "little people" we have in clinics across the country whose lives are increasingly on the line as anti-choice nutjobs become emboldened by the actions of people like you — they just do not understand How Things Are Done.
Feel free to drop a little something in the till here to show that you’re picking up what I’m puttin’ down, know what I mean? And I look forward to seeing you on Saturday for Lynn Cheney’s five alarm chili.
Sincerely,
Cecile Richards on behalf of Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood does an amazing job providing reproductive rights healthcare accross the country. Their workers are incredibly brave and nobody does it better.
But as long as the national organization is willing to play their part in the incumbency protection program, I think we’ll be looking for leadership with regard to electoral politics somewhere else.
And no, to answer your question, some wounds never heal.
Related posts:
- Will Planned Parenthood and NARAL Score the House Health Care Bill?
- Vote Counting for Good Health Reform: Doing What Any Good Lobbyist Would Do
- And the Catholic Bishops Endorse! A Special Thank-You To Planned Parenthood and NARAL
- Women: Get Realistic About Your Uteruses
- Stupak Threatens to Block Health Care over Abortion; Planned Parenthood, NARAL Take a Nap
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It’s not hipocricy, it’s being pragmatic.(yeah, right!)
She actually just said that, in effect. She said we had to be more “sophisticated” than to expect that politicians would simply do something because it was the right thing to do.
Used to give money to them. Don’t now. Told them to take me off their e-mail list. I don’t forgive easily.
I’m glad to see that the hipocricy has been taken care of…*g*
Hiya Jane…it’s been a while…it’s been too long…*G*
ok, but is it too much to expect national planned parenthood to do the right thing? what’s her excuse? that she’s a politician too?
Reminds me of AARP and Bush’s Screw The Elderly plan a few years back. If I were a candidate for public office, I’d throw their bullshit questionnaires in the circular file.
u r funny selise
that made me laugh
Actually it isn’t hipocricy. It’s hypocrisy.
If there is a question period, will you ask about her support of Holy Joe?
Jane may have to get someone else to ask the question. Ms. Richards might not call on Jane.
being pragmatic and all.
I know that we have much on our hands right now – war, health care, the environment etc. but this has been MY issue for many years. I always get angry just thinking about it. All these years of work and they still don’t want women to have control of their own bodies.
She shouldn’t even have been asked to speak at Take Back America.
Did anyone ask her a question about her support for Holy Joe?
Not just incumbents being protected here — Cecile’s mighty keen on her own job, too.
Think about it: the more solidly pro-choice our national legislature becomes, the less America has a need for Ms Richards’ lobbying services. And you can bet she knows this. A 50-50 Congress, with choice in danger every day, serves her fundraising much better than a 60-40 split in favor of choice.
Good day, Jane. Thanks for the way-back treat!
These people sicken me.
Where are the pie throwers when they’re needed?
Hypocrisy in America? No that just can’t be. Unless it’s hiding under my desk with Iraq’s WMDs.
Hypocrisy is not unique to democracies or to religion. It’s just heavily concentrated in both.
Please think of giving to your local feminist health center as an alternative. Believe you me they need the bucks.
Get up and walk out.
They do need the bucks. I have been giving to the Women’s Shelter – also need bucks and other things.
Is there a real moral turpitude in all leaders in this country now, or do I have a mistaken impression?
Planned Parenthood’s “report card” shows Lieberman has a good score because he voted against seating Alito on the Supreme Court.
What is lost is the nuance. Lieberman voted for cloture. As CT Bob pointed out, that was the his REAL vote, but the so called report card is incapable of recognizing this.
I’m still pissed with my own senators for the same vote. They think we won’t notice their hypocrisy.
I really don’t understand what is going on with people like Ms. Richards; then there is Nancy Keenan.
I’m afraid “encumbency protection” is the eighth deadly sin, to which PP’s national and local boards often submit. A danger in single-issue politics is that one may choose an abhorrent Congresscritter solely because s/he votes your way on that issue.
Loverman is an elegant case in point; he also illustrates that the familiar and unchallenging may be much more comforting than competence.
Margaret Sanger would weep to see what has become of her organization.
((((Twain))))
Howdy y’all!
Your problem starts here.
I am wondering if anyone at the forum spoke out against richards for what she did on behalf of liebernan, and if so, how did she respond
I wonder if she is big enough to admit the monumental mistake she made supporting the liarman
Forgot to say thanks, Jane, for talking about this. I remember the post when you did it and clapped loudly.
Jane, you GO, girl.
Please keep holding their feet to the fire. In the meantime, you might also tell Ms. Richards that the “sophisticated” are smart enough to see this for what it is: They’ll lose their fundraising ability if there is no threat of losing Roe v. Wade. Therefore, it’s important to keep guys like Short Ride Lieberman around.
Cruel? Harsh? Maybe. Cynical? Yeah. Then again, there’s NOTHING this bunch does that surprises me anymore.
Ms. Richards does nothing but make the lives of those who are working on the front lines in PP’s clinics daily more difficult.
-S
Somebody’s certainly does…
And no, to answer your question, some wounds never heal.
Actually, I was going to ask if anyone asked Ms. Richards if she still thought that the Lieberman strategy was a good one.
Tangentially on topic, if you broaden topic to include women’s medical care, Merck announced the FDA was putting Guardacil (anti-cervical cancer vaccine) on fast track for approval for women above age 26, meaning it’ll be available 9 months sooner. According to CNBC.
Might we assume that PP’s contributions took a nose-dive after the Lieberhun endorsement?
One might imagine those repurcussions are still falling into place. Does she have a personal history with Joe? Are thier “circles” intersecting somewhere interesting?
Just wondered how her support group EVER let that happen in the first place, maybe that list of Joe enablers at the top end of the PP power structure would be enlightening.
I think it is safe to speculate that their actual political priorities might be revealed, if they were put on that list. Obviously, protecting women’s right to determine their own choices was not their “primary” objective.
Make that Gardasil, and here’s a link.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/23707240/for/cnbc/
Gardasil
A powerful odor of mendacity fills the air when she speaks.
Even the fucking cyber air.
The Lieberman Backstab is the gift that keeps on giving. PP should be duly embarrassed and ridiculed for their support of Short Ride. Especially in consideration of Lieberman’s stunt(s). After he lost the Democratic primary to Lamont, Holy Joe abandoned the Democratic Party, ran as an Independent and was elected by Republicans who abandoned their own candidate in favor of the warmongering, opportunistic Lieberman.
I never donate to their political wing, “Planned Parenthood Action Fund” I think it’s called. I explain to the caller about “Short Ride” Joe. They usually gasp in horror when I tell them about that incident.
But I always donate to the clinic wing of the organization.
I think that is a very good policy. Their clinic wing deserves all the support they can get.
boy am i sorry i missed this thread
one of my favorite things to rant about.
go jane!
and ecahn–the gardasil debate–didya notice they came out with a ’scary numbers’ teen study to push people further into getting it?
when the cdc had much scarier numbers released i think year before last year……..about all std’s……..yet not a word about it, but now that gardasil is being pushed on the states, all of a sudden it’s headline news.
but they only mentioned the numbers for teens, didn’t mention the numbers for entire population, which are high.
sorry, writtten in haste, was just checking in and saw your post.
later
Jane, I usually read posts too late to respond but I wanted to thank you and let you know how much I appreciate your continued emphasis on this issue in particular and feminist issues in general. Your tenacity is important. I have noticed these posts often elicit fewer comments then other topics you write about except of course when it is necessary for commenters to assert assertively that what you suggest might be sexism ABSOLUTELY ISN’T. (hmm!)
When I write Barbara Boxer to thank her for voting correctly on something I respectfully re-remind her of her lapse in judgement about Lieberman. It is important to let these powerful people who claim to represent us know that we have long memories.
I agree, but as the Dems seem to be going down in the flames of their own uncivil blog war, revealing a side to themselves as unflattering as tone of Reverend Wright’s sometimes way of putting things, I have not really heard from the candidates or the campaigns, or the blogs of late, how among all the other things going, the one sure-fired, lasting effect of any President is his or her court appointments. John McCain selecting the supremes, hmmn. Of the three candidates, which does one suppose would be most inclined toward the balances weighing justice and mercy for overly imprisoned working class and poor, the groups sold short by the American justice system in the past 40 years dominated by Republican administrations, which would tip the balance toward the corporate elites? which would be most or least likely to set aside political concerns for the common benefit in the spirit of the evolution of American law from its initial impulses?
Jane- really really late here, but thanks for this and your continuing attention to this issue.
I remember ALL of your posts on this. We are of like minds.