In a blog entry at the Daily Beast, Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile determines that the Susan G. Komen funding controversy regarding Planned Parenthood was contrived by right-wing aggressors to remake everything in America in their own image.
As the dust begins to clear from the controversy over the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation's decision to cut and then restore funds to Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings, it seems like a good time to step back and look at the larger problem — the modern-day McCarthyism that has put all of our institutions under attack from a set of right-wing aggressors set to remake everything in America in their own image.
Like Sen. Joe McCarthy, these right-wing forces practice guilt by accusation, followed by guilt by association. Like McCarthy himself, they often pick targets unprepared to defend themselves, and institutions unwilling to defend their own. Like McCarthy himself, in the name of defending American principles, they seek to bring down patriotic Americans and important American institutions. And like McCarthyism itself, they will continue to succeed in poisoning our civic culture until America’s broad mainstream is willing to help our institutions stand up to these attacks, even if taking a side invites controversy.
The effort to withdraw funding for Planned Parenthood that came to light in the last few weeks was just the latest symptom of this problem. Attacks on reproductive health care are nothing new, of course. Support for that basic health care used to be a bipartisan issue, and Republicans from Richard Nixon to Sen. Prescott Bush (father and grandfather to presidents) were staunch supporters. But for years, a concerted minority that is concentrated in — but not limited to — the Republican Party has made it their mission to politicize the issue at all costs.
Read Donna Brazile's entire blog entry at the Daily Beast.