Thank God for the Caucuses!

Presidential Primary Race Helps to Obscure Major Scandal

Let’s say you’re the president of a corporation facing a major crisis. Under your leadership, the company has allegedly performed numerous illegal operations and then broke the law to conceal it. You face numerous criminal charges and several investigations are underway. All the while, a heated battle rages in court.

Despite all this, you’ve done quite well. You’ve managed to somehow keep your name out of the national media (though the local media has picked up the story), and you have a major ally on the prosecuting side questioning the legitimacy of the charges and the investigation.

Then the worst thing happens. It is discovered that your ally is breaking the law in order to help you, and when people start looking into it, they discover that you actually helped put him in office. This, of course, is a huge scandal and you fear that your face, along with his, will be on the front page of every major newspaper in the country tomorrow.

But wait! There are heavily contested presidential primary races going on, and the caucuses are in high gear, with emotions running high. There are TV ads, radio shows, contentious bickering, heated debates, votes, and all the national news outlets will be focused on it. You are home free. Thank God for the caucuses!

If that story sounds familiar, you are probably aware of the incredible movie-like facts in the case of Planned Parenthood in Overland Park, Kansas. They are thanking the media — or their lucky stars; I seriously doubt they’re thanking God — for focusing on the caucuses, while virtually ignoring their “little situation.”

Planned Parenthood faces 107 criminal charges, including 23 felony counts for allegedly performing illegal late-term abortions and unlawfully falsifying documents in order to conceal that fact. They are also accused of purposely failing to comply with the required medical reporting guidelines, and a judge has already found probable cause.

Though Planned Parenthood receives more than $300 million of our tax dollars to operate nearly 860 facilities around the country (making them the number one provider of abortion services in the country), somehow the national media has managed to ignore this story and continue focusing on presidential primary races.

To say the least, it’s a coup for Planned Parenthood, which has managed this potentially damaging public relations nightmare by claiming that the investigation is motivated by politics and is the personal vendetta of District Attorney Phill Kline. The national media apparently believes them, and apparently there are more important stories like the caucuses.

Meanwhile, the fact remains that Planned Parenthood may have used our tax dollars to falsify and forge documents, while failing to follow medical reporting guidelines, in order to perform illegal late-term abortions.

But the story doesn’t end there. Allegations have recently surfaced that Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison, who ran against Kline with the support of Planned Parenthood, has actually tried to interfere with the investigation against Planned Parenthood by harassing a district attorney employee with whom he was having an affair.

Linda Carter, the former director of administration for the district attorney’s office, alleges that during her two-year affair with Morrison he repeatedly asked her to give him information about Kline’s Planned Parenthood investigation.

What? Say that again? Call the newspapers! Send a TV crew! Oh wait, they’re at the caucuses.

Although he has repeatedly denied claims that he asked Carter to gather information for him, Morrison had to step down from office after acknowledging the affair. Still, the claims are there, and the evidence keeps coming in, but no national media coverage.

In any other context, these allegations would be on the front cover of every major newspaper in the country.

On the news that District Attorney Kline was appointing a special prosecutor to look into possible blackmail, harassment and other crimes committed by Morrison during the affair and that the investigation would continue even after Morrison leaves office, Morrison’s spokeswoman Ashley Anstaett told the Associated Press that “anything associated with or initiated by Phill Kline is politically motivated.”

Well, that explains it; back to New Hampshire.

Seriously though, “politically motivated”? How about facts- and evidence-motivated? Are they supposed to ignore the allegations of a woman who alleges that Morrison tried to use their sexual relationship to interfere in a criminal investigation? She wasn’t lying about the affair. Is the investigation supposed to stop because he is leaving office?

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is certainly happy the national media is not paying much attention. Let’s not forget, she was and still is a staunch Morrison supporter. She has actually said she is hoping “we can move on.”

Okay, let’s move on. Let’s move on the investigation to see if these allegations are true. Let’s move on to investigate the connection between Morrison and Planned Parenthood. Let’s move on to investigate Planned Parenthood’s 860 facilities all over the country to see where else these practices might be occurring. Let’s move on to investigate why abortion providers apparently enjoy a special status, above the law, in our society. Let’s move on to investigate why public officials want to “move on” when clear violations of the law have occurred.

I know that it is a natural reaction to want things to go away when a problem arises, but perhaps a little more concern and respect for the rule of law is in order here.

There are so many layers to this story you would think the national media would be all over it. There is so much smoke coming out of Kansas people in Hawaii are getting teary-eyed.

But then again, maybe it’s just me. How’s Obama doing?