Democrats are calling out Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) for her “reckless disregard” for the privacy and safety of those medical professionals — following the public, unredacted release of the some of their names…. Last week, Blackburn sent two public letters to the Obama administration that contained the unredacted names and contact information of researchers at the biomedical company StemExpress, university and hospital researchers, and Planned Parenthood staffers. The unredacted letters were also posted on the select panel’s website. In an interview with Rewire, a representative for Blackburn said that the release was staff error.
It’s interesting that the GOP, the “Party of Life,” so often engages in behavior that not only doesn’t support life, it can (and in this case does) places the lives and well-being of innocent people in peril.
Anyone on the Far Right, the ideological terrain Rep. Blackburn calls home, understands how zealous anti-abortion activists are. They have to- those zealots are their base. They know how inflexible, intolerant, and willing to go to the mat some of them are…so to say that “accidentally” releasing the names and contact information for medical professionals was a “staff error” stretches the bounds of credibility. Congressional staffers are of necessity well-versed in privacy laws and expected to adhere to what I suspect are very tightly crafted policies and procedures in order to stay within those laws. Not to put too cynical a spin on it, but given the highly partisan nature of the Republican campaign against Planned Parenthood, I’m not certain it’s even possible to be excessively suspicious of the motives involved. It’s not unreasonsble to believe the leak was a calculated, deliberate act done to score political points.
The House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives (yes, that’s a real thing…that our tax dollars are paying for, BTW), which Rep. Blackburn chairs, has been the primary blunt instrument of choice for Republicans wanting to harass Planned Parenthood. If you’ve been wondering how the brave champions of fiscal responsibility can justify spending millions of dollars on the Congressional equivalent of a witch hunt…well, it’s election season, remember? Abortion-related services may constitute only about 3% of Planned Parenthood’s activities, but it’s enough in the minds of Conservative culture warriors to mount a witch hunt against them.
For Rep. Blackburn’s staff to react in a manner that sounds a lot like, “Oops! Our bad!” seems as dishonest as it is self-serving. It’s campaign season, and since BENGHAZI!!! hasn’t gotten nearly the traction Republicans had hoped for, about all they really have left is the long-since discredited Planned Parenthood “scandal.” The claim that Planned Parenthood is profiting off the sales of body parts of aborted fetuses may have long ago been determined to be specious, but the truth isn’t the point. It doesn’t mean Republican culture warriors can’t find ways to cravenly beat the dessicated corpse of a false, dishonest scandal for cheap political points. If it takes slyly providing names and contact information of medical professionals who may (or may not) be associated with Planned Parenthood…well, there are elections to win, knowhutimean?? The potential deaths of (or injuries done to) a few innocents is merely a cost of doing business.
Blackburn’s leak…included the name of a doctor who had already been threatened by anti-abortion groups and details about when and where that doctor was supposed to appear to give testimony. She sent the letters and then…the letters were also posted on the committee site. Democrats likened it to “painting a target on the back of scientists and researchers.” But really, it was more like staking them out and sounding a horn.
If the “leak” really had been a case of “staff error,” a one-off and a legitimate mistake, it might be easier to understand. Turns out that the select panel’s become something of a sieve when it comes to sensitive information. Quelle surprise.
“This Panel has shown a reckless disregard for protecting private information and now a troubling possibility has come to light,” Ranking Member Jan Schakowsky said in a press statement. “Inexplicably, anti-abortion activists have learned of confidential information provided to the Panel — raising the specter that the Republicans may be funneling confidential information back to those individuals and groups.”
Democrats on the committee have long warned that the investigation was ignoring important rules around privacy and putting doctors and researchers at risk — or, in the words of Rep. Jarrod Nadler (D-NY), “effectively painting targets on the backs of scientists and researchers for no particular reason other than the Republicans’ desire for a culture war.”
Now it appears that risk has become a reality.
Republicans have discovered to their dismay that they can’t win based on the issues, and so they’ve decided to revert to type. If they can’t win honestly, they’ll pursue victory by appealing to the darker angels of voters, the Right-wing equivalent of panem et circenses (bread and circuses). Keep ‘em scared and stupid…and Planned Parenthood provides the perfect target for misdirected rage and righteous anger.
To distract voters from their generalized ineptitude and lack of commitment to issues impacting most Americans, Republicans have been searching for a shiny object to capture their attention. Despite the multiple millions of tax dollars and several investigations (none of which yielded anything faintly resembling evidence of evildoing on the part of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton), BENGHAZI!!!! didn’t do the trick. The sheer horror generated by the prospect of Planned Parenthood profiting from the (wholly fictional) sale of aborted fetus parts has generated at least a little bit of traction within the Republican base, but even that has its limits.
The seeming next logical step would be for Republicans to offer up medical personnel associated (directly, tangentially, or not at all) with Planned Parenthood and tar them as being complicit in the “baby parts trade.” It’s no secret that there are a few zealots among the anti-choice crowd who have no issue with killing in order to protect the unborn. The irrationality of killing to protect life (see Roeder, Scott and Hill, Paul) aside, offering up names and contact information seems a perfect way to provide one-issue voters (that one issue being abortion, of course) with a way to focus their energies and rage.
I can’t flat-out accuse Rep. Blackburn or her staff of the calculated and deliberate release of personal, private information…because I don’t have evidence to back up such an assertion. That caveat aside, neither would I be surprised if that turned out to be exactly what happened.
It’s election season, remember?
