Komen Update

Reporter Laura Bassett of The Huffington Post confirms that yes, anti-reproductive rights activist and former Grizzly Mama, Karen Handel, less than nine months into her hire as Susan G. Komen for the Cure SVP Public Policy, drove the brand-ruining decision to defund Planned Parenthood:

"Karen Handel was the prime instigator of this effort, and she herself personally came up with investigation criteria," the source, who requested anonymity for professional reasons, told HuffPost. "She said, 'If we just say it's about investigations, we can defund Planned Parenthood and no one can blame us for being political.'"

Emails between Komen leadership on the day the Planned Parenthood decision was announced, which were reviewed by HuffPost under the condition they not be published, confirm the source's description of Handel's sole "authority" in crafting and implementing the Planned Parenthood policy.

Handel's strategy to cut off Planned Parenthood involved drafting new guidelines that would prevent Komen from funding any organization that was under investigation by local, state or federal authorities. Since Planned Parenthood is currently the target of a congressional inquiry prompted by House Republicans into the way it uses government funds, the family planning provider would have been immediately disqualified from receiving new Komen grants.

After the initial uproar when news of the decision broke, the story that Komen told the public was that the cut-off was unrelated to a political agenda against Planned Parenthood.

Until she is removed, SGK will not have a chance to recover. There needs to be a purge. And, I would expect, Founder and CEO, Nancy Brinker, should go emeritus.

Politicians like Brinker, a former U.S. Ambassador and also White House Chief of Protocol, both for El President George W. Bush for whom she and her then-husband were big benefactors, never seem to learn that the cover-up is worse than the crime. She's on YouTube lying first to the public through their hastily arranged PR video, then in an interview with Andrea Mitchell.

Nobody wants to give their money to a liar, no matter how good the cause. It's a monstrous rending of the trust that is SGK's living hell right now. The other formerly ineffective attacks on their character, from those who decry the "pink-washing" that turns a pink ribbon into consumerism, to the question about SKG operating budget, salaries and first-class travel for top execs.

The Internet flipped two public policy initiatives within a week or so of each other. First was the outcry leading to withdrawal of the controversial Internet privacy bill lobbied in by the entertainment conglomerates, then came the SGK debacle.

I'd say thus far, God bless the open net.