John Zmirak analyzes the earthquake that the Center for Medical Progress videos have unleashed here by comparing how Bill Cosby handled the scandalous truth.
This was the playbook that Bill Cosby and his damage control team were using, and it almost worked. Had there been a little less evidence and had his accusers been less courageous, his reputation might have survived. Best of all, from his perspective, would be if he could have found a judge willing to silence the women accusing him — to tie up in costly legal proceedings their right to tell their own stories.
Planned Parenthood is using the exact playbook in its attempts to spin, distort and silence the evidence collected through three years of in-depth, undercover reporting by the Center for Medical Progress. First, Planned Parenthood issued blank denials and claimed the three videos released so far had been deceptively edited: Move along, there’s nothing to see here. But the CMP calmly replied that it had already posted the raw, unedited footage online for journalists to check themselves.
Then, Planned Parenthood called on its closest allies, President Obama and candidate Clinton, who vouched for the group’s good will and moral probity. Who were these pro-life “nobodies,” compared to the president of the United States and the presumptive Democratic nominee? But courageous Republican lawmakers such as Ted Cruz and Rand Paul stepped forward in response, along with other candidates such as Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, dozens of Republican congressmen, and at least one Democratic politician, Ohio state representative Bill Patmon.
Then, Planned Parenthood tried to kill the messenger, falsely tying the Center for Medical Progress to assorted reckless cranks at the outermost fringes of the pro-life movement. (Every movement has such hangers-on; think of the brick-throwing anarchists who showed up at Occupy Wall Street.)
Read the whole article here.
