So, you are wondering, how do you ruin a successful brand and embroil yourself in a pointless controversy that scares the shit out of your corporate sponsors and enrages both the left and right wing of the political spectrum, all while doing it in such a ham-handed and offensive manner that you manage to get $3 million in donations to organization you want to destroy in just a few days? Hire this guy:
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush and prominent right-wing pundit, secretly helped guide Komen Foundation’s disastrous strategy regarding Planned Parenthood. Fleischer personally interviewed candidates for the position of “Senior Vice President for Communications and External Relations” at Komen last December. According to a source with first-hand knowledge, Fleischer drilled prospective candidates during their interviews on how they would handle the controversy about Komen’s relationship with Planned Parenthood.
There is literally nothing the Bush gang can not screw up. Nothing. They have this reverse Midas touch, where everything they touch just goes to shit. They hire him to advise them into how to turn their vile theocratic fantasies into action, and here is what he accomplishes:
The outpouring of support online for Planned Parenthood and women in need of breast cancer screenings has been nothing short of astonishing, and because of it, the Planned Parenthood Breast Health Fund has received more than $3 million from thousands of people across the country in only three days.
Every dollar we received for this fund will go directly for breast exams and diagnostic services, as well as breast health outreach and education. And now that the Komen Foundation plans to continue their support, even more women will receive lifesaving breast cancer care.
Well done, Ari, Karen, and company. I can’t remember another time when the ugliness of wingnuts led to a positive outcome. Well, there was also that 2008 election.
(photo via )
kindness
Maybe if us liberals scream loudly enough about Ari Mitt will name him to a prominent position on his election staff…
No, don’t throw me into that nasty briar patch mr ari.
shoutingattherain
Yeah. Komen ain’t gonna be able to unshit this bed.
poco
Bwahahahahah!!!!
dmsilev
What, was Mark Penn not available or something?
BGinCHI
Along with Bill Kristol, these fucking idiots should be sequestered in a place, let’s call it Delphi, where they could be consulted about major governmental decisions: Iran, the housing and job markets, health care.
Then whatever they advise, the country does exactly the opposite.
It cannot fail.
The Oracle, brought to you by George Costanza.
CT Voter
The ugliness of wingnuts in the Terry Schiavo case led to 2006. That’s also a positive outcome.
Baud
The scary thing is that Bush & Co. look like a well oiled machine compared to the current crop of GOP yahoos.
Linda Featheringill
Good for Planned Parenthood!
The founder/CEO of Komen would be well advised to sit down and be quiet. Every time she speaks, things get worse. I read what I think was the last statement around noon and was upset most of the afternoon about it. That whole statement was just so much offal. It was so condescending, I expected to hear someone tell me to not worry my pretty little head about it all.
BTW, is looks to me that donating to PP is more efficient in terms of actual breast examinations than donating to Komen.
TBogg
For those not on the twitter machine:
Hiring Ari Fleisher to vet a spinmaster is like hiring Tim Tebow as a throwing mechanics instructor
Hill Dweller
Fleischer was also the architect of Tiger Wood’s disastrous media strategy after his affairs became public.
These Bush losers keep failing upwards.
CT Voter
@Linda Featheringill:
Sing it! Bypass the useless middleman, go directly to PP. Which, apparently, lots of people decided to do this week.
dmsilev
@BGinCHI:
Fixed.
General Stuck
When jewish neocons and white religious wingnuts hook up, say yer prayers if you got em, cause people are about to die, somewhere, somehow.
JC
‘The Doodie Touch’!
I love it!
Michael Demmons
I am embarrassed that Karen Handel is from my state. But then, that’s Georgia. I get to say this a lot.
Sarah Proud and Tall
I love it. Komen released a statement that didn’t mean anything, which the general public is supposed to think means everything will be ok.
PP is going to keep repeating the “Komen said they were going to keep funding us” message.
Then when Komen stops funding twelve months from now, and tries to rely on their weasel words, they are going to look even more shifty.
Steve
I looked up a Planned Parenthood financial statement and found that they get about $250 million a year in donations. So $3 million in 3 days is still a lot of money, of course, but it’s actually not that much more than they take in under normal circumstances!
One of the ironies of this whole controversy is that Komen’s annual grants to Planned Parenthood amount to a fraction of PP’s annual receipts from donations. It’s a large sum of money but in a sense it’s also a drop in the bucket.
The biggest benefit to PP from this controversy has not been the dollars, but the publicity. A lot of women who may not have thought about the fact that you can get breast screenings, mammograms, etc. through PP may start taking advantage of their services, which is good news for everyone.
Allan
Proving, for the 7,375,679th time, that no Republican should ever be put in charge of anything, anywhere, anyhow. When will America learn this lesson? Perhaps the 7,375,680th time will do the trick…
Cat Lady
And yet, I still see Ari Fleischer on my TV giving his opinion.
Maude
There’s a lot to be said for competence. Praise the FSM that Obama is president.
The incompetence and corruption of Bushco doesn’t ebb easily.
Power protects power and the Bushies got hired whereas you or I wouldn’t get a toe in the door.
This is one way the deck is stacked against the 99%.
Elizabelle
The ad that’s appeared at the top of this post for me:
Do you have cancer related pain and suffer from constipation?
Cancer-related stuff has been popping up ever since BJ went Komenfraude.
The constipation is new. Ladies and gentlemen: I give you Ari Fleischer.
shortstop
GodDAMN, that’s funny.
BGinCHI
@dmsilev: That’s your answer to everything, and it’s a good one.
slag
Next Jon Kyle is going to hire Ari to claim that Planned Parenthood secretly exported 90% of their abortions to Syria.
Svensker
Oy. I just can’t… Ah ha hahh ahhha hhaaaa haaahhhhaaah. *Gasps. Wipes tears away*
Spaghetti Lee
That’s one of those things I Just Don’t Get. How do these decisions get made?
“Mr. Fleischer, what are your credentials?” “Spin guy for the most disastrous presidential administration in living memory. My guy had a 30% approval rating by the time he left.” “You’re obviously a PR genius! You’re hired!”
I mean, is it just like they’re all in the same Rich Fucks Club, so they just feel obligated to hire each other even in the face of obvious incompetence, because hiring someone outside that circle just isn’t done? And these are the guys who are supposed to understand capitalism better than us libruls.
Mike in NC
Ari the Asshole was also one of the guys behind “Freedom’s Watch”, which tarred anyone who was against the Iraq invasion as a traitor. Newt’s billionaire benefactor was a major fund provider.
cathyx
Ari does have a little George Castanza thing about him.
Southern Beale
OMG I just saw this and was running over here to post it, glad John was on top of it. CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE IT?? Yes I can.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
Should have gone with He’s King MIdas In Reverse.
General Stuck
@Spaghetti Lee:
In the right wing echo chamber, no one can hear you scheme.
Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey
Jesus. I just…Jesus.
How in the bloody fucking hell do these people manage to still get jobs? I mean, I can give out shit advice too, but that doesn’t translate into a fat paycheck for me. How the fuck do they do it?
Napoleon
NBC news showed some tweet or post from ABL as part of their report on this subject.
shortstop
Still laughing.
schrodinger's cat
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis: How is everything at your secure location. I see that they have given internet access, so it can’t be all bad.
gaz
I never thought I’d say this, but
Thank God for Stupid.
butler
The Iraq war, the Bush administration, Tiger Woods, the BCS, and now this komen fiasco. Is there no limit to the horrible things Ari will agree to represent?
BGinCHI
@Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey: The grift is their genius.
Cat Lady
Heckuva job Ari!
GregB
It appears the Family Planning insurgency is in its last throes, if you will.
Warren Terra
To be fair to Ari, he made one excellent PR decision: he may have been a tone-deaf bullying incompetent, but the media’s sustained blowjob for the Dubya administration meant that was a superficially viable strategy, and the one thing he did right was to get out of the White House in July 2003, while the administration was still riding fairly high on 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq, before most of the media had figured out what a clusterfnck Iraq was and long before the American people wised up to the Dubya administration’s amazing ability to turn everything they touched to shit.
Maude
@Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey:
They all know each other. Here’s how it goes in some cases.
A family, well to do has a son. The son goes to the right private schools and an Ivy League college. All this time, contacts with people who can help them are amassed. When they get out of college, sometimes they do an internship at some prestigious company or whatever. They have money and so can afford to build contacts there also.
The son of the well to do family is folded into the bosom of the influential people who hire for very high paying jobs.
There is an unspoken code to keep out the less than, in other words the 99%.
The MSM for the most part is an insular club. They talk to each other and don’t stray into reality. They have become well to do celebs and have no intention of losing their incomes or status.
The saying used to be, as long as you don’t scare the horses, you will do fine, in their world.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@BGinCHI:
Put Apple in charge of building this, so they can call it: iHelped.
(I know, it isn’t quite Delphi spelled backwards, but that is as close as I can get to it and still pronounce the resulting word).
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Sarah Proud and Tall:
I hope so because I hadn’t thought of that somewhat longer term stragetizing. I just see the first part “Komen said they were going to keep funding us” and scream because Komean hasn’t changed anything in terms of *committed* funding. The only thing they’ve “changed” is that they’ll “allow” PP to apply for grants after this year.
And as long as the same wingnuts control the organization, we know what will happen to those grants. Komen might be thinking that in 12 months, they’ll be able to better spin why the will turn down PP grant applications.
Or perhaps Ari “Yet Another Mouth Of Sauron From the Bush Administration” is advising them this is a good thing to do. Which means it will come back and crap all over them.
This has been a good thing not just because of the funding surge to PP: it’s pulled away the curtain SKG has been hiding behind for years and allowed everybody to see them for the sham charity they are.
joes527
@Spaghetti Lee: I dunno. Ari and Sweaty Scott got BushJr through 2004.
It is pretty fucking amazing that they were able to keep the plates spinning that long.
dmsilev
@BGinCHI: When it comes to conservatism, I admit it’s pretty much a catch-all solution.
Waldo
Heck of a job, Ari!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the one thing I’ve learned over the past few days is the primary function of the Komen outfit, the main talent of Nancy Brinker, is public relations. So she went out and hired Ari Fuckin’ Fleischer? How far up the ass of Fred Hiatt and Liz Cheney do you have to have your head to think hiring Ari Fleischer for anything other than a carnival dunk tank dummy is a good idea? Did Brinker have a complete mental breakdown, find Jeebus and turn her entire life over to that Sarah Palin wannabe from Georgia?
scav
o, it is good to laugh. OK, it hurts but it hurts good.
ulee
Andrea Mitchell translated when interviewing Nancy Brinker: What the fuck is wrong with you? I’m serious…what the fuck is wrong with you?
Waldo
@Cat Lady: Like you said
bemused
These rightwingers keep emerging from the pink citadel. How many more of them are in there?
General Stuck
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Actually, they did change how they would decide grants into the future. They dropped the scam of denying PP funding due to any kind of investigation, and specifically stating that was the reason for this crap in the first place. If they don’t fund after the current period, they are going to have to come up with another rule change, because PP will be doing just what they’ve been doing in cancer screening for years with getting Komen grants. It really was a complete cave, but no group is going to publicly guarantee future funding for any org, including PP. If they pull another stunt like this, we go through this shit again. I doubt they do, but who knows?
shortstop
And still laughing.
DanielX
@dmsilev:
I have to disagree. Given the Bushies’ god-given gift for fucking up everything they touch, they most assuredly should be kept around as object examples – always provided they’re kept out of reach of any public office higher than municipal shitpicker.
If Karl Rove had been in charge of this ratfuckery, it at least would have been competently executed, and probably nobody would ever have found the slimy little maggot’s fingerprints. Ari Fleischer having a major role in an effort like this? What were these people thinking?
Also, too. May I suggest that hoocoodanode be added to the labels for this post. If “nobody could have predicted…” ever applied to anything, it applies to this premium grade clusterfuck. Having a former Bushie connected to any major project is a recipe for disaster; the only question is when the disaster will occur.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
As I game this out, I can see their reason for not giving PP any money next year:
“We’re sorry but our
griftingfundraising over the last 12 months has been severely reduced and we’re cutting back on grants. After reviewing all our grant applications, we had to make some painful choices and alas, you’re one of the “painful” choices.”I’m cynical that way.
slag
@GregB: The best part of this whole Komentastrophy just keeps getting bester. I was mildly worried that the entirety of the GW Administration would disappear from view during this upcoming election. But here they are again…turning up to remind us all about the bad ol days. How kind of them.
Speaking of, I wonder what Brownie is indeed up to these days. Maybe he’s taken on a captainship for Exxon. Or is getting certified in nuclear medicine by the Phoenix Institute. I understand there’s no end to that man’s talents.
Josie
I just love this. Anything that embarrasses Ari Fleischer is definitely a good thing. His smug mug infuriates me every time he is on the tube.
General Stuck
@slag:
Probly still searching for his lost testicles, that Karl Rove keeps in a pickle jar locked inside his desk.
j
@General Stuck: (Ahem) Isn’t Israel going to nuke Iran at half time of the Super Bowl this Sunday?
Kyle
This is the kind of incompetent ideological cronyism we can look forward to again if the Repukes get the White House. Magical thinking and hate-driven arrogance lead directly to Stupid, do not pass Go, and they collect a hell of a lot more than $200.
Steve
@General Stuck: Finally, a sensible comment on the “reversal” question. While I’d love it if they had said “we promise to accept every grant application Planned Parenthood submits to us, ever,” that not a very realistic expectation.
The idea that they would be able to reject PP for some BS made-up reason in 6 months and get away with it is silly. That’s exactly the same thing they just tried. Did they get away with it? If PP gets rejected, this whole controversy immediately bubbles to the top all over again.
Jay S
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think you’ve got correlation = causation problems there. I’m guessing Karen Handel was more of a symptom or leading indicator of Komen’s intentions than the instigator.
GregB
@slag:
I think Brownie has been hired on to advise Romney and his first move was to tell Mitt to make a big deal out of the Trump endorsement.
Cat Lady
@Waldo:
Can’t be said enough. ;)
slag
@GregB: Great. So now people will be going on teevee to say that Mitt Romney doesn’t care about poor people.
Oh wait. Mitt already said that.
j
AAAARRRGHHH!!
I just saw a Bank of America / SGK ad on TV that promises a “THREE DOLLAR DISCOUNT” if you “register today” for whatever scam those 2 upstanding FOR PROFIT entities are trying to sell this week.
HAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!
Probably the 2 most hated pieces of crap teaming up!
Hey, dudes and dudettes, when you find yourselves in separate holes, you don’t tunnel horizontally and decide to use both shovels to make 1 bigger and deeper hole.
http://promo.bankofamerica.com/komen/
Jeeze, what a collection of EPIC FAIL!
So instead of charging an arm and a leg in interest they can charge a tit and a kiss.
johio
After an infuriating week, this gave me a much needed belly laugh. I wonder if Ari puts this on his resume…advised SGK on strategy to end PP relationship…
How does thisman ever work again?
mclaren
This suggests some interesting possibilities.
Put ex-Bush-administration thugs in charge of increasing the rate of global warming. Ta-da! Within a year, we’ll have global cooling.
Fund an organization to hire ex-Bush-administration toadies to destroy gay people. Within five years, gay marriage will be legal in every state in the union.
Set up a foundation to pay ex-Bush-administration clowns to increase the rates of all cancer in America. Within 10 years, cancer will be cured!
piratedan
kind of makes you wonder if Ari is the anti-Luntz don’t it?
scav
Don’t miss this little juicy detail indicating how well this is going to be memorialized in PR textbooks:
“Not me!”
Garbo
@General Stuck: Nice!
dexwood
The Pink Weasel starring Ari Fleischer coming soon on Fox.
slag
@Steve:
You’re assuming those donations are spread out evenly throughout the year. I would argue that you are assuming incorrectly.
In fact, I would argue that the beginning of the year is generally a particularly slow donation period for them. But that’s based on my own observations of the nonprofit donor cycles with which I’m vaguely familiar.
j
Local news update:
Avon is pushing their breast cancer charity like crazy. I haven’t seen more than 3 or 4 Avon BC ads in my life, and now they are like political ads in a primary state. Every other ad is for SOME other BC organization.
I had no idea there were so many.
I guess SGK screwed the pooch on their wingnut ideology power play.
Eff em.
Steve
@slag: I’m not assuming anything of the sort. I’m simply pointing out that on the scale they operate on, $3M is far from a game-changing amount – let alone the $700,000 or so in Komen funding that they almost lost.
I hope the people who rallied to support Planned Parenthood this week will be there again the next time the Republicans try to cut off PP’s federal funding. The stakes in that battle are roughly 500 times larger.
West of the Cascades
I love Planned Parenthood’s touchdown dance and gleeful spiking of the ball in that news release, while still avoiding the 15-yard excessive celebration penalty. Planned Parenthood’s reactions at every step of Komen’s meltdown and grovelback have been as nearly-flawless as Komen’s actions/reactions have been inept. PP’s PR people should get major kudos (along with the blogosphere) for ripping the pink shroud off Komen’s filthy inner workings.
Xecky Gilchrist
Looks like Ari had better watch what he says, watch what he does… lest he poo all over his goals yet again.
West of the Cascades
@j: Is this the Avon Foundation for Women Breast Cancer Crusade? Didn’t Komen trademark the color pink, terms “Women” and “Foundation,” and phrase “Breast Cancer”? I smell a trademark infringement suit!!
slag
@Steve:
Agreed.
gwangung
@Steve:
Point taken.
On the other hand, how likely is it for PP supporters to sit on their hands NOW?
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
i am actually most amazed at how effective the gop, frc, and conservative attempts to paint planned parenthood as a racist organization are.
i had assigned the eugenics, and black holocaust rhetoric to the dust bin of widely diiscredited conspiracy theories. apparently it is alive and well, and is catching me off guard.
that is the thing to remember about right wing tactics, ari fleischer, dead eye dick and the turd blossom posse, focus on the family, et al, they keep coming back when you thought they were dead.
if they can frag black voters, then the whole komen thing is a win as a part of a larger strategy.
srv
After a few days of wondering “how does shit like this happen?” I’m left with “oh, that explains everything.”
The truth is always out there.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
@schrodinger’s cat:
Great! I’m loving it.
Jay C
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
While your analysis, while rudely phrased, is probably quite true at bottom, it can’t be an “all-of-a-sudden” decision. Especially not as we know that the obvious dumping of Planned Parenthood from the Komen Foundation’s grant-list was floated at least as far back as last fall.
My guess is that Nancy Brinker (and whoever else count as honchos at the SGKF) have been hearing negative shit from starboard about PP for quite a while, and decided that their “mission” didn’t include having to get grief from right-wing nuts about their support of their “abortion-mill” boogeyman, and decided to break off their support: and meanwhile, shore up/mollify their winger base by bringing someone like Karen Handel (good Republican, obsessively anti-abortion) on board as a VIP.
But seriously, ARI FUCKING FLEISCHER?
gwangung
@Jay C: Actually, my guess is that Nancy Brinker actually IS a right wing nut about the support of the abortion mill boogeyman (or, at least, fairly far along the road to it). It was just trying to gather enough internal clout and replacing all the leftward leaning allies.
j
@West of the Cascades: See the link at my post @ # 67.
Until yesterday I never knew Avon had a cancer awareness / cure charity. Now I do. And there are many others I have never heard of that are advertising on high priced Ad fee shows around here, like the local news, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. You know, the shows favored by middle aged + women with disposable income.
I always thought that it was only the American Cancer Society and SGK.
I know better now.
honus
So we’ve got Ari Fliescher, G W Bush’s ambassador and chief of protocol, and Dan Quayle’s wife’s assistant chief of staff running this “non-political” organization that want s to de-fund Planned Parenthood and cuts funding to any embryonic stem cell cancer research.
There’s gonna be a lot of Yoplait going bad on the shelves.
pseudonymous in nc
@Spaghetti Lee:
Once you’re approved for wingnut welfare, your eligibility only goes away if you stop being a wingnut.
@scav:
I think it’s obvious that the PR paramedics only arrived last night, after three days of self-contradicting idiocy. The “pause for reflection” is straight out of the handbook for dealing with those kinds of fuckup.
WereBear (itouch)
@Hill Dweller: Get out!
But, not surprising.
stannate
I prefer the Sterculius Touch. Sterculius, as I learned from a very old episode of “Beavis & Butt-head,” is the Roman god of feces.
Montysano
Well, Krauthammer and Pat Buchanan were already under retainer by Lilith Fair, so Ari was the next logical choice.
mak
@Sarah Proud and Tall:
Cecile Richards played this masterfully. When this Shitcano first erupted, I fully expected to see her everywhere and all the time, complaining about how PP had been wronged. Certainly, if I’d been in her shoes, I would have been on any channel that would have me, bitching about how politicized Komen has become. Certainly, too, she was invited to speak everywhere, where should could have dutifully recited her talking points.
Instead, with the exception of one brief appearance on some morning show (or something) at the very beginning of the fiasco (where, as I recall, she very coolly voiced her disappointment with Komen), Cecile was . . . nowhere.
In retrospect, she looks like a genius. Rather than crawl into the media mud with the Komen pigs, she just stepped aside, and let the Facebook/Twitter fire escalate into the cable news conflagration that forced Komen to issue their non-apology. And she did so without burning the bridge to SGK. Smart.
Rogers
Saw on some other blog that a Scalia(wife?)is also on the Komen board.It’s obvious that this is less a legitimate charity than a sinecure farm for wingnut females.
Geeno
I think the key to “Victory” here was that PP got out ahead of everyone. Seriously, the first I heard of this was PP announcing the revenue loss and talking about how that would affect their offerings – NOT Komen’s mealy mouthed weasel announcement that they had to cut funding ‘cuz PP is under investigation. PP got out there fast and put their narrative out first. That is so crucial. Otherwise, we’d be reading about how Planned Parenthood is losing major funding due to all their nefarious activity, and the wingers would double down on the “investigation”.