The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Sports of the Tautological
“Might Take Overtime to Win Super Bowl” reads the headline on an Associated Press dispatch looking ahead to Sunday’s big game between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. If Super Bowl XLVI goes into overtime, it will make history, as all 45 Super Bowls thus far have been decided in regulation.
But it isn’t exactly news that it may end in overtime. If the score is tied after 60 minutes of play, it will go into overtime, and since it’s a playoff game, the teams will keep playing until somebody wins. This isn’t news, it’s tautology.
It gets worse. Here’s how the story begins:
In each of their trips to the Super Bowl with Bill Belichick as coach and Tom Brady at quarterback, the Patriots threatened to go into overtime. They eked out three wins and lost by three points to the Giants.
When New England and New York face off Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium, the Patriots will be favored by three. That will be the winning margin, and it will come in an unprecedented extra period.
But who will win?
Glad you asked.
Each team is on a roll . . .
Yeah, each team is on a roll. Because in order to get to the Super Bowl, you have to win at least two consecutive games (three in the No. 4-seeded Giants’ case) against playoff teams. Any team that makes it to the big game is on a roll by definition.
Komen Get It
Susan G. Komen for the Cure actually is what Planned Parenthood advertises itself as being: a charity whose main concern is women’s health. Komen was founded in 1982 by Nancy Brinker and is named for her sister, who died of breast cancer two years earlier. Until this week, it was probably best known for its fund-raising runs and walks known as Race for the Cure.
Now Komen has provoked the fury of Planned Parenthood, whose self-description as a women’s health organization is at best tendentious. In truth, Planned Parenthood is America’s leading provider of, and one of its most zealous advocates for, elective abortion. It is also a recipient of government largess; federal funds it receives are not supposed to pay for abortions, but they make it a political lightning rod all the same. And it is one of the most powerful interest groups in the Democratic Party. In last spring’s budget deal, funding for Planned Parenthood was the one subject on which President Obama refused to compromise.
Thus Planned Parenthood is most accurately characterized as a political organization, a combatant in the culture wars, with some sidelines in women’s health. One of those sidelines occasioned the partnership with Komen that has now turned into an ugly split. The Associated Press reports that Komen gave grants to Planned Parenthood of “roughly $680,000 last year and $580,000 the year before” to provide breast-cancer screenings and related services at 19 clinics. When Komen decided not to renew the grants, all hell broke loose:
Komen . . . incurred heated criticism from some members of Congress, numerous liberal advocacy groups and some newspaper editorial writers. But it was applauded by many conservative religious and anti-abortion groups that abhor Planned Parenthood for its role as the leading U.S. abortion provider.
Planned Parenthood says the funding cutoff was a result of Komen succumbing to pressure from anti-abortion activists. Komen, in a statement issued Wednesday evening, denied that politics played a role and reiterated that its decision was based on newly adopted criteria for issuing grants.
The criteria bar grants to any organization that’s under local, state or federal investigation. Planned Parenthood is being investigated for alleged financial improprieties by a Republican congressman acting with the encouragement of anti-abortion groups.
The attacks are vicious, and in some cases vulgar. MoveOn.org is encouraging people to post on Facebook a graphic that states: “I stand with groups that don’t screw over Planned Parenthood and 1,000’s of women in the process. Sorry,Susan G. Komen, that means NOT you.”
Slate’s Amanda Marcotte, who was fired from John Edwards’s presidential campaign over sexually explicit anti-Catholic blog posts, called the decision not to renew the grant “a shocking move” and “an act of cowardice”–though in truth, Komen will show itself to be rather brave if it does not back down amid the abuse it is now taking.
Planned Parenthood itself issued a press release in which president Cecile Richards declared: “We are alarmed and saddened that the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation appears to have succumbed to political pressure.” She described the Komen decision as “deeply disappointing and disturbing” and warned that it would “jeopardize women’s health” unless other donors came forward.
They did. According to the AP report, Planned Parenthood raked in some $400,000 from 6,000 donors–around $67 each on average–within 24 hours. It was tactically savvy to turn a fund-raising disappointment into an opportunity, but we wonder if it might not have been a strategic mistake.
Planned Parenthood’s bitter campaign against Komen–aided by left-liberal activists and media–is analogous to a protection racket: Nice charity you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it. The message to other Planned Parenthood donors is that if they don’t play nice and keep coughing up the cash, they’ll get the Komen treatment.
There’s one crucial difference, however. In a real-life protection racket, the victim never pays voluntarily. The threat is present from the get-go. By contrast, Komen presumably was not under any duress when it made its grants–and it could have avoided all this nasty publicity by never dealing with Planned Parenthood in the first place.
Thus smart prospective donors–especially ones that are apolitical, like Komen–are getting the message that supporting Planned Parenthood is a trap. Give once, and you will give again–or else you will pay. …..
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