Planned Parenthood's CEO Cecile Richards slayed them by being professional, calm and . . . . . . simply right. The Republicans could only stew in their own toxic juices that they had concocted to try to destroy her and her organization.
The committee chair, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), tried to disarm Richards right off the bat by questioning her about her salary, hoping to say that PP obviously doesn't need any government money if they can pay her that much. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) used her time as a committee member to attack Chaffetz for focusing on Richard's salary, which she says he would not have done if Richards had been a man.
"I first would like to register my opposition and my objection to the chairman beating up on a woman . . . for making a good salary. . . . The entire time I've been in Congress, I've never seen a witness beaten up and questioned about their salary. . . . Ms. Richards heads a distinguished organization providing health care services to millions of Americans. I find it totally inappropriate and discriminatory."
At least two other Democratic women members of the committee chastised their committee chair for his disrespect of Ms. Richards, but it was a male colleague, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) who said that the disrespect Chaffetz had showed to Richards is reflective of a much broader problem Republicans have with women.
"My colleagues like to say there's no war on women. Look at how you've been treated as a witness. Intimidation. Talking Over. Interrupting. Cutting off sentences. Criticizing you because of your salary. How dare you! Who do you think you are, making a professional salary as the head of a premier national organization and daring to actually make decisions as the head of that organization? . . . "Lord Almighty, what's America coming to?"
Televised excerpts of the hearing tended to focus on such moments, but it did seem that Republicans were relentless and disrespectful to Richards: asking questions, then cutting her off before she could even get out a full sentence in reply, then firing another question and cutting her off when she tried to answer.
The low point for Chaffetz came at the end of his questioning period when he put up his piece de resistence, a chart purportedly showing that, between 2006 and 2013, "cancer screening and preventive services" had declined sharply while "abortions" had increased. Richards said she had never seen the chart before. Chaffetz said that they had taken the figures "from your report." Richards repeated that this was all new to her, that she would look into it, but that "it absolutely does not represent what's happening at Planned Parenthood."
Chaffetz, looking triumphant, asked incredulously: "You're going to deny that these numbers came from your report?"
At this point, Richards' lawyer leaned over and called her attention to the fine print at the bottom of the chart. Without missing a beat, as Chaffetz was still sputtering about her denying her own numbers, Richards leaned into her microphone and calmly repeated what her attorney had just pointed out to her: "This chart is from Americans United for Life, which is an anti-abortion group; so I think you'd better check your sources."
Oops. OMG, what Schadenfreude!!! You almost had to feel sorry for Chaffetz . . . but not very much. He came in full of arrogance and superiority, and he got destroyed by his own hubris. But the delicious bit was that it was a woman who pointed out his mistake, the woman he had been hounding for four and a half hours.
Well, we could go on and explain that the chart is not only bogus, it's a terrible chart in that they use a different scale for the two measured factors. In addition the numbers are all wrong anyway. So it's hardly worth the space to say all that's wrong with it. Vox has a good dissection of the chart, if you want the details.
The final two points are this:
1. The Republicans' case against Planned Parenthood had already collapsed when it was proven that the video was faked. The truth is that they held a hearing that was purported to be to investigate the validity of the video, and they didn't even call the guy who made the video -- because they know that it's all a house of cards that would collapse.
2. Chairman Chaffetz' next big "evidence" against PP was supposed to be this damning chart; it collapsed right there for all to see. He didn't even have the good sense to redact the small print at the bottom of the chart that clearly said "Source: Americans United for Life" and, instead, accused the witness of "denying that these numbers came from your own report."
This is the political party that wants us to elect them to run the government?
Ralph
PS: Released the day of the hearings is an NBC/WSJ favorability rating poll that shows: Planned Parenthood 47% favorable/31% unfavorable (+16% net); Republican Party 29% favorable/58% unfavorable (-33% net).
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