NYT's Calmes Again Tries to Change Subject From Repellent Planned Parenthood Tapes: GOP Risks 'Overreach'

By Clay Waters | July 22, 2015 | 10:10 PM EDT

New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes managed to write a 1,500-word story on David Daleiden, who runs the pro-life group that conducted damning undercover interviews with Planned Parenthood executives about harvesting baby organs, without once mentioning the actual contents of the newly released videotape, an interview with Mary Gatter of Planned Parenthood in California.

The omission is certainly not for lack of repellent quotes, like the one where Gatter is talking to people she thinks are medical company representatives about the price of baby body parts: "I want a Lamborghini." (Isn't it Planned Parenthood's defense that they make no money off donating the organs?)

As she did in her initial July 15 story, Calmes desperately tried to discourage the GOP from making the undercover tapes an issue, suggesting that it would backfire, either through a government shutdown or by reminding voters how much they love the government-funded abortion mill Planned Parenthood: "...Democrats said they were counting on Republicans to overreach with their attacks -- inciting a backlash from women, younger voters and political independents who support Planned Parenthood -- and then retreat, as has happened before."

Confronted with such hostility, it's no surprise that David Daleiden, who ran the successful sting of Planned Parenthood (which received over $500 million in federal funding last year) was reluctant to talk to the Times:

David Daleiden would only reluctantly talk about himself: “I don’t think I’m the story,” he said by phone on Tuesday. But he is the man behind the story and the hidden camera -- the anti-abortion activist who has provoked a storm with his video stings alleging that Planned Parenthood clinics are selling tissue from aborted fetuses for profit, a charge the group denies.

On Tuesday, for a second time in two weeks, a video appeared online showing a Planned Parenthood official in California discussing over lunch the price of providing fetal parts to a man and woman who are never shown on camera, but who are posing as buyers from a firm that procures tissue for medical researchers. Once again, Planned Parenthood condemned the scam for deceptively characterizing its handling fees to cover expenses, which are legal, as illegal profiteering.

There are many more videos to come, evidently, and Calmes sounded displeased with the prospect:

The time frame all but ensures political tumult ahead. The videos will coincide with the Republican-controlled Congress’s final weeks of work on spending bills needed to finance the government after the Oct. 1 start of the next fiscal year. The first videos have already given impetus to conservatives’ push to hold those bills hostage unless they are amended to eliminate money for Planned Parenthood and other family planning programs. The risk, as in past years, is a government shutdown.

Calmes desperately tried to suggest that the videos and the Democratic silence on them was actually a smart, winning strategy.

The White House and congressional Democrats, who are allies of Planned Parenthood and protective of women’s abortion and reproductive rights, have been mostly silent. They say that Planned Parenthood has done a good job in its own defense, and that they do not want to give the story any more oxygen than it already has -- especially since some video stings of the past came to be discredited without Democrats’ help.

Also, Democrats said they were counting on Republicans to overreach with their attacks -- inciting a backlash from women, younger voters and political independents who support Planned Parenthood -- and then retreat, as has happened before.

Calmes's story yesterday on Planned Parenthood's accusatory letter in response to a congressional investigation was an exercise in damage control that failed to challenge Planned Parenthood. Yet she gave Daleiden the hot-seat treatment:

He rejected a question about the potential benefits of research using fetal tissue for curing and treating diseases, saying, “Most fetal tissue work is real Frankenstein stuff.” He also dismissed critics of his undercover methods, which included forming a fake company and mysterious tax-exempt advocacy group, saying that only Planned Parenthood or its supporters would object.

Calmes tried some guilt by association:

He continued his anti-abortion work as a student at Claremont McKenna College, in Claremont, Calif., where, he said, he got a degree in government and befriended the conservative activist Charles Johnson. Mr. Johnson is a self-described “citizen journalist” whose confrontational posts on Twitter -- in particular one that solicited donations to “take out” a civil rights activist -- recently got him banned from the website.

....

Some liberal websites have suggested that Mr. Daleiden is also a friend and ally of James O’Keefe, who, like Ms. Rose, is a well-known video provocateur, for his campaign that brought down the liberal community organizing group Acorn. “I would consider James a friend,” Mr. Daleiden said. “But in reality, I’ve literally met him once in my life.”

....

In his Live Action biography, Mr. Daleiden attributed his anti-abortion militancy to seeing images of aborted fetuses as a teenager. But in the interview, he also said, “I am the child of a crisis pregnancy.”

Calmes performed some more irrelevant hand waving to distract from the point of Planned Parenthood bragging about harvesting baby body parts:

Mr. Daleiden also would not name the women who went undercover with him. He said he had worked with five to seven women, some of whom were also anti-abortion activists. Others, he said, were hired “to fill the role.”

A lawyer for Planned Parenthood has raised questions about whether Mr. Daleiden violated state or federal laws by fraudulent corporate and tax filings. On Monday, Mr. Daleiden issued a statement in response: “The Center for Medical Progress follows all applicable laws in the course of our investigative journalism work.”

The paper even defended Planned Parenthood in its lead editorial Wednesday, "The Campaign of Deception Against Planned Parenthood," as shown by Spencer Raley at Newsbusters.

The Washington Post was unbalanced as well, but at least went into a little detail on the contents of the sting video, including the infamous "Lamborghini" quote.

An antiabortion group on Tuesday released a second video apparently showing a Planned Parenthood official discussing the method and price of providing fetal tissue left over from abortions for medical research.

The edited video from the Center for Medical Progress shows excerpts of a conversation with Mary Gatter, Medical Director for Planned Parenthood Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley, in what appears to be a booth at a restaurant. The woman is shown talking with unseen activists, posing as medical company representatives, about the price of the tissue while also stating that “we’re not in this for the money.”

At one point, Gatter jokes: “I want a Lamborghini.”