Meet the Nasty PR People Just Hired by Planned Parenthood

REUTERS/JOSHUA ROBERTS
REUTERS/JOSHUA ROBERTS

Planned Parenthood has brought on a high-powered left-wing PR firm to handle the current crisis related to the abortion giant’s complicity in the abortion after-market of freshly killed baby parts.

SKDKnickerbocker immediately sent out a note to media outlets asking them not to run footage provided by David Daleiden and his group, the Center for Medical Progress because the videos “violate patient confidentiality.”

The claim hardly holds water since no patients from Planned Parenthood abortion clinics have been shown and, though baby body parts have been shown, Planned Parenthood views them more as products than patients.

The claim can be viewed as typical PR lying, especially the kind practiced in Washington DC, especially of the sort practiced by senior members of the SKDKnickerbocker firm.

Managing Director Anita Dunn is well known as the White House communications director for Barack Obama who famously told a high school audience that her favorite philosophers were Mother Theresa of Calcutta and the murderous Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse Tung. Dunn is married to DC uber-lawyer Robert Bauer who failed in his attempt to the Department of Justice to prosecute conservative critics and to go after TV networks for running ads connecting Obama to radical bomber Bill Ayers.

The firm also features Managing Director Hilary Rosen who some believe was a Planned Parenthood mole when she was hired to advise the Susan G. Komen Foundation in 2012 when the foundation was trying to distance itself from Planned Parenthood.

Rosen is a longtime left wing operative in Washington DC. She helped found Rock the Vote, and was the longtime head of the Recording Industry of America, as well as political director of left-wing Huffington Post. As a CNN pundit, she famously said Mitt Romney’s wife “never worked a day in her life.”

Inexplicably, Komen head Nancy Brinker hired Rosen in 2011 to “handle the left” as she tried to get her breast cancer foundation out of its sticky relationship with Planned Parenthood. At the same time, Rosen’s firm SKDKnickerbocker was the PR and media agency of record for Planned Parenthood.

According to the book Planned Bullyhood published by ousted Komen senior marketing executive Karen Handel, and from an interview Handel gave to LifeNews, it appears that Rosen may have been playing a double-game, advising Komen but backchanneling to her company’s other client Planned Parenthood.

The timeline demonstrates what some view as suspicious behavior on the part of Hilary Rosen.

December 8, 2011: Komen tells Rosen the decision had been made that they are going to stop funding Planned Parenthood.

December 16: Komen CEO Liz Thompson calls Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards with the news but “she already knows everything.”

First week in January 2012: The story leaks out from a pro-life group that is privy to inside information. The story is quashed. Rosen tells Komen that Planned Parenthood is going to let the whole thing pass. In the words of LifeNews, “This turns out to be either a lie or an epic fail on Rosen’s part…”

January 23: Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz calls Komen CEO Nancy Brinker and urgently needs to talk with her. Wasserman Schultz cancels the “urgent” call and reschedules for a week later, January 30.

January 30: David Crary of the Associated Press calls Komen with the news he’s doing a story about Komen and Planned Parenthood. This was the first inkling that Komen had that Planned Parenthood might be up to something. Rosen insists, “I don’t think this is any big deal.” Wasserman Schultz calls Brinker and has detailed knowledge of what Komen was planning. The call is said to “get ugly.”

January 31: The AP story breaks and a tsunami of bad PR hits the wholly unprepared Komen Foundation. Even with PR pro Rosen at their side, hired to handle the left, Komen soon becomes dangerously swamped.

February 2: Against advice Nancy Brinker appears on an interview show with Andrea Mitchell who eviscerates her. Handel believes Rosen did not even assist in the “murder boards” to prepare Brinker for the interview.

February 2: Rosen retweets, “3 Komen execs resign, 50 lawmakers sign aggressive letter to women, & Bloomberg donates $250K to Planned Parenthood”, which is odd for someone supposedly trying to get good PR for her client Komen.

February 3: Nancy Brinker, Komen CEO, announces her organization would continue funding Planned Parenthood and apologizes.

February 3: Rosen retweets something from Nancy Pelosi, “When women speak out, women win — Komen decision to continue funding Planned Parenthood is a victory for women’s health.”

February 3: Rosen herself Tweets, “Congrats to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. sgk.mn/w7MEZR No room for politics in fighting cancer.” This from the woman hired to help Komen get out of the culture wars.

All of this goes to demonstrate that Rosen and her colleagues will do practically anything to fight their enemies and that David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress may have drawn first blood he is nonetheless in for the fight of his young life.

Follow Austin Ruse on Twitter @austinruse

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