While most political reporters are delighted to focus on Donald Trump roiling the Republican race for president, Washington Post reporter David Weigel underlined how liberal Democrats are quite unhappy with Democrat candidates for failing to be staunch enough in supporting Planned Parenthood's ugly trafficking in fetal baby parts.
This didn't appear in the actual newspaper, of course. Weigel noted Sen. Joni Ernst announced "Hillary Clinton is calling these Planned Parenthood images disturbing, and I agree." He elaborated:
That line had the intended effect. It rattled abortion rights supporters, reminding them that the Democratic frontrunner for president had hedged on their issue. The fight to defund Planned Parenthood is only the latest in a series of conservative attempts to shift the conversation on abortion, from one that bedevils Republicans to one that flummoxes Democrats. Instead of speaking generically -- and popularly -- about "women's health care," the Planned Parenthood sting forced Democrats to confront the little-covered and gruesome issue of fetal tissue sales.
Clinton's "disturbing" comment, made in an interview with New Hampshire's Union Leader, landed poorly. It did not matter that Planned Parenthood's CEO Cecile Richards had apologized for the conversations in the video sting. The Democratic frontrunner, seemingly, had been forced into a defensive crouch. "She needs to clarify what her [point of view] is, and articulate it strongly and without apology," former Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt told MSNBC's Irin Carmon. "I just think that when candidates get to the firing line of a campaign they get thrown off balance and waffle."
One wonders what these advisers would have the Democrats say. They apparently have to sound like Slate and say of the videos, "I don't see death in these videos. I see hope," that donating the dead baby organs is a glorious "act of altruism." Hillary certainly wouldn't say what she said to Gen. David Petraeus in 2007, that to accept Planned Parenthood's claims would require a "willing suspension of belief."
Bernie Sanders was also failing, from the radical feminist viewpoint:
Clinton's closest competitor, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (R-Vt.), fared no better -- at first. On July 17, when the videos broke, he cited Richards's statement and averred that "the tone was terribly wrong" in the fetal tissue conversation. "He has not gone out of his way to defend the group," wrote Mother Jones reporter Molly Redden in an article shared nearly 3000 times on Facebook.
Then Sanders tried again, and he was still being panned by ultra-feminists who love abortions, like Katha Pollitt:
"The current attempt to discredit Planned Parenthood is part of a long-term smear campaign by people who want to deny women in this country the right to control their own bodies," said Sanders. "Let’s be clear: Federal funding for Planned Parenthood does not pay for abortions. The vast majority of government funding that Planned Parenthood receives is through Medicaid reimbursements."
That looked like a move to Clinton's left -- but for some, it was too clever by half.
"It's a little mealy-mouthed, no?'" said the feminist columnist Katha Pollitt. "As I read it, he doesn't defend abortion specifically. He says Planned Parenthood provides gyno care for millions of poor women."
Weigel noted none of the candidates have been willing to defend the videos' contents. Then he turned to Martin O'Malley for the evidence:
"I haven't seen the videos. And I don't generally make a habit of responding to right-wing videos," O'Malley told reporters in New Hampshire this week. "I do know that 97 percent of the work that Planned Parenthood does is about mammograms and preventative health."
Weigel didn't note that his own newspaper awarded three Pinocchios to the idea that Planned Parenthood provides mammograms. "The problem here is that Planned Parenthood does not perform mammograms or even possess the necessary equipment to do so."
