Every now and then an otherwise fantastic organization makes a bizarre, counter-productive, and/or puzzling decision that makes no fucking sense when examined in the light of day. Such was the case when the Susan Komen cancer group tried to ban Planned Parenthood, on a flimsy, transparent excuse, from their deep bench of life-saving players. I guess it happens to anyone sooner or later. Coca-cola pisses off loyal customers by changing the formula of its flagship soda. A local bank decides to start charging its very best, long time customers for visiting the branch and talking to a teller instead of using an ATM on the corner. The measure of a company isn’t if this happens, odds are it will eventually, the character of that org is revealed by how long they take to admit the screw up and reverse course. By that measure, Komen did pretty darn good in my opinion, and tossing the dominionist fundy idiot that caused all the fuss overboard is icing on the cake:
(LA Times) — Karen Handel, the vice president of public policy at Susan G. Komen for the Cure, has quit her post at the breast cancer charity; her move comes on the heels of the group’s reversal of it decision to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood. In her letter of resignation, Handel, a conservative Republican who unsuccessfully ran for Georgia governor in 2010, said she had supported ending the funding of about $700,000. The charity ultimately decided to continue the grants after the cutoff sparked a nationwide furor fueled by social media such as Twitter and Facebook.
Not good enough, in my view. There’s still the question as to whether future grants will be SERIOUSLY considered (they should commit to extending the current grants RIGHT NOW for another grant cycle).
Also, there’s the matter of their lying about what they did, lying about why they did it, and lying about who did it.
Is Jane Abraham (rabidly anti-choice/contraception advocate) still on Komen’s board?
Does former Bushevik mouthpiece Ari Fleischer still advise Komen’s leadership?
Until those two (& probably others) are sent scuttling like rats across the frozen tundra, Komen still has some cleanin’ up to do.
That’s the thing, though. They didn’t reverse course. They said they’d keep the existing grants, but make no guarantees about providing or renewing those grants once the existing ones ran out. In other words, they agreed not to breach a contractual promise, and you think this shows “character” on their part?
Plus, given what Handel said in her resignation letter (essentially that she was the hatchet-woman for a corporate policy that had been agreed on, but expedited once she came on board), there’s a lot more forced-birther rot at the core of that particular apple. Has to be, since they agreed to hire her in the first place.
So yeah, not even close to being a repair job, just sacrificing the most visible of the sacrificial lambs here.
As far as I can tell, this is just a PR move. Throw someone to the lions, and see if that satisfies the crowd. There doesn’t appear to be any recanting from the organization itself in the matter.
As interrobang states above, they simply acknowledged that they’ll continue to support the existing commitments.
Guys, that may all be technically true, but in my experience few orgs would even be here, where Komen is, now. Most screw-ups I’ve witnessed, when the perps weren’t busy getting promoted, the dumbasses who caused and their bosses wait a month before they say anything, just to see if, hey, maybe it will blow over on its own. Then they start wheeling out the truthiness speils. It can take a year, sometimes more, before they finally put it into half ass revesre.
This response and job change is really fast compared to what you usually see in the private sector in the wake of dumbassery.
I dunno, I think the response and job change is really fast because the public condemnation has spread really fast. That hasn’t been the case through, well, any of history up to now.
Yeah that’s a good point Pteryx.
Komen may have admitted the screwup, but Handel apparently is incapable of doing so:
Yeah, right, Komen reversed their decision because it was doing such great things for their reputation </sarcasm> This is delusional, bordering on the insane.