MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell interviewed "Ambassador" Nancy Brinker, Founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, about the backlash following Komen's decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood because of a very-newly-created guideline at Komen that it cannot provide funding to any organization "under federal investigation" - which Planned Parenthood is (if, that is, by "investigation" you mean "witchhunt") by right-wing anti-choicer Congressman Cliff Stearns (who, of course, defends the validity of his "investigation").
Since that interview - in news that's supposed to be good, but is sort of like closing the barn door after the horses are gone - Komen has since re-visited its decision about Planned Parenthood funding, walked it back, and made a public apology: "We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women's lives." Thing is, I - as well as many others - aren't terribly impressed by Komen's walk-back. It's not like Komen was being good for goodness' sake - it took Mayor Bloomberg's $250,000 donation to Planned Parenthood and several affiliates bucking the Komen system and celebrities refusing to support it any longer and money . . . damn, who among us would argue that this walk-back isn't all about money? But, the more important detail is that proud and loud anti-choice, anti-Planned Parenthood, failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate and Komen higher-up, Karen Handel, is still installed in her job. Until Komen dumps her, well, it doesn't seem that it and progressives have all that much to talk about.
During the interview with Brinker, Mitchell made no bones about which side of this debate she was on - and I can hear teeth gnashing, rending of garments and tearing of hair from the right-wingers as we speak over that damn "gotcha" media. But Komen's change of tune didn't come because Brinker was brilliant in her interview and won over the naysayers (in fact, she rivaled Sarah Palin in her performance in the Katie Couric interview.) And though I'd love to say that Brinker came fully prepared to explain to the laypeople in the audience the ins and outs of grant-giving, and how Planned Parenthood came to be on Komen's chopping block, it ain't happening. Her double speak had double speak - and if there's someone out there who's, say, a Ph.D of grant giving, maybe he or she can figure out what in tarnation this woman was talking about:
Mitchell: I have to tell you, this is shocking to a lot of your long-time supporters . . . they're asking, how could this have taken place?
Brinker: Well, Andrea, I frankly think . . . it's a mischaracterization of certainly our goals, our mission and everything that we do. In fact we haven't de-funded Planned Parenthood, we stil have three grants that we've committed to at least for another year until the end of the grant cycle . . .
Mitchell: . . . I come to you today expressing the anger of a lot of people, channeling through them . . . and the fact is, a lot of people are tracing this back . . . to what some found a surprising hiring of Karen Handel who ran for Governor, we've seen her statements . . . "I am staunchly and unequivocally pro-life . . . I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood" . . . Why hire a key staff person who is so strongly, fiercely identified against Planned Parenthood, one of your grantees?
Brinker: Well let me just for the record tell you Karen did not have anything to do with this decision . . . Everything that we get up and do every day is about the mission, to provide women, vulnerable populations, with care, treatment and screening . . . We are not de-funding Planned Parenthood. We have three grants that will go on this year and they will probably be eligible for the next grant cycle.
Mitchell: This is the one group out of 2000 grantees . . . Planned Parenthood is the only group that comes under the rubric of this new policy, which is to not fund any organization that is under investigation . . . the investigation from Congressman Stearns many believe is trumped up.
Brinker: There are other investigations in states, number one . . . In 2010 we set about creating excellence in our grants, not just in our community grants but in our science grants, putting metrics, outcomes and measures to them so that we can translate all of the science we funded over 30 years. Now, part of that includes taking these grants into communities and being excellent grant-givers. Many of the grants we were doing with Planned Parenthood do not meet new standards of criteria for how we can measure our reults and effectiveness in communities. That is not to say that if they did meet those criteria they would not be welcome to submit it . . .
Mitchell: Their supporters say that they are the only ones that have been signled out . . .
Brinker: That's not true . . .
Mitchell: And that their grants for breast screening have nothing to do with any contraceptive or abortion . . .
Brinker: That's not the issue . . . our issue is grant excellence. They do pass-through grants with their screening grants, they send people to other facilities. We want to do more direct service grants; we contacted them in the fall, because we've been a long-time partner of Planned Parenthood, almost 20 years . . . many of our grants worked for a long period of time . . . This is about the restructure of our grant program. Now, as an NGO and as a leader in the breast cancer space, we have an obligation to the community we serve, to donors and to this country to translate cancer care in the way that we know how . . .
Mitchell: . . . the anger that's being expressed is going to hit you in the pocketbook . . . your branding is at stake.
Brinker: All I can tell you is the responses we're getting are very very favorable, people who have bothered to read the material, who have bothered to understand the issues. Again we work for mission every day of our lives, and our job now is to translate cancer therapy into usable types of therapies that can be accessible for people . . . We are not giving less money in the communities where we're giving money . . . We will with some of them go to direct service providers, but we still have these grants in place with Planned Parenthood in places where there aren't direct service providers and they are good grants and they work with us. But unless we have a way again to measure grants, to create metrics, outcomes, in ways that we can say this works in this community with this vulnerable population, this is what will work, these are the barriers, this is how it works, that is our only mission, to cure breast cancer . . . .
Mitchell: Are you going to put out the evidence that you have that there's been anything flawed in the way they've delivered services to these vulernable populations?
Brinker: All we're doing is explaining again to our mission what the criteria for new grants and community based grants are for our organization, for the time we are. Many of the grants were education-oriented, we don't need to do that kind of education any more, we've done it for 30 years. Now we need to translate this care into usable clinical care in communities. That means that if a person's screened, we need to follow, we need to follow up the screening, did something happen. Once they go through the Planned Parenthood program, they often have to come to us for additional therapy and care. We are trying to revise our community grant program and we're doing it, and we . . . they've been a long time partner of ours, we notified them of this change and frankly we've been very private about it and we have not said that we won't accept grants who meet our criteria.
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