O’Sullivan’s First Law in Action

O’Sullivan’s First Law, named for John O’Sullivan, former editor of National Review, speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher, and author of the fine book The President, The Pope, and the Prime Minister, goes as follows: Any institution that is not explicitly right wing will become left wing over time.  Good example include such seemingly anodyne institutions like the League of Women Voters, PTAs, National Public Radio, most professional associations like the American Bar Association, the Pew Charitable Trust (which actually was intended to be explicitly conservative, and still got captured by the left), and so forth.  This week is seeing a good example of the logic and action of O’Sullivan’s First Law at work.

We noted here the other day how the leftist climateers are pressuring the American Meteorological Association to submit to climate orthodoxy.  But an even more revealing case is the way the left is reacting to the decision of the Susan G. Komen Foundation to discontinue most of their funding for Planned Parenthood.  The left has gone into full denunciation and outrage mode.  Feminist organizations went directly to DefCon1.  The Komen Foundation’s website has been hacked.  Board members are being pressured to resign.

The Komen Foundation, which focuses exclusively on breast cancer, decided to stop most of their funding because Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer mammograms in most of its locations.  Komen said it will continue funding some PP clinics that do offer mammograms.  Instead of respecting the foundation’s fiduciary decision, the left attacked the organization’s chair, Nancy Brinker, because she’s a Republican, and a friend of the Bush family.  (Amazing how much power the Bush family seems to have now that it is out of office.)  And/or it’s because those mean Republicans in Congress are investigating PP; when you’re on the left, you’re supposed to get to collect taxpayer dollars with no questions asked apparently.

It is a fresh reminder that the left fully absorbed and adapted the Brezhnev Doctrine: once they capture an institution, they aren’t giving it up.  How dare a private foundation stop coughing up the dough.  It explains why “diversity” means conformity to liberal views in newsrooms, college faculties, and Hollywood studios.  It’s why the left reacts with howls of outrage every time you propose reducing taxpayer funding for NPR and PBS, even as the left disingenuously argues that NPR and PBS receive only a “tiny” amount of tax subsidy.  It should also remind us how the left will fight every battle to shrink government like it was Verdun.  Which suggests one obvious conclusion if you’re an incoming Romney Administration: go big.  Go after everything at once.  The New York Times only has room to run three editorials a day.  Kurgman and Friedman—the Kang and Kodos of the Times’ op-ed page—will both have an embolism.

By the way, there is no O’Sullivan’s Second Law.

UPDATE: I was in a conference all day, and as several commenters noted, the Komen Foundation has folded.  As I say, liberals won’t be denied “their” money.  Shame on Komen.  I’m not going to run in any of their 5K races any more.

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