First off, that's a great job that was done on the "Susan G. Komen Outrage" ribbon where we can click to take action. I'm not one of those grumpy people that complains when the site decides to put one of those floating icons (I'm sure there's a name for that, but I'm not a tech guy) up on the front page. One of the purposes of this site is political action. I'm always happy when the opportunity to do so is made easy by the admins.
Politicizing a foundation dedicated to helping fund breast cancer research certainly is an outrage, especially to its donors. I certainly don't have to point out that it's also organizational suicide--that discussion has been all over Daily Kos all day.
Here's another kind of outrage, it's going to be the result: a Lt. Randolph Outrage. Follow me over the fold.
A Lt. Randolph Outrage is, simply put, a nose-pulling incident.
From legalaffairs.org :
Disrespect for someone's public face was a serious insult that demanded a response. Nose-pulling, for example, was known as a "Lieutenant Randolph outrage" because of a well-known incident in 1833 in which Robert Beverly Randolph tried to pull the nose of President Andrew Jackson during a presidential visit to Randolph's hometown, Fredericksburg, Virginia. Jackson had dismissed Lieutenant Randolph from the Navy for being in debt. To avenge his honor, Randolph approached Jackson, took off a glove, and tried to pull the President's nose. The 66-year-old Jackson reacted violently: He pushed Randolph away, stood up, and demanded revenge. "Let no man interfere between me and this personal insult," he said.
As Greenberg recounts, when Randolph was later apprehended for the assault, Jackson rejected the interference of the court in what he regarded as an affair of honor. He asked President Martin Van Buren to pardon Randolph, citing the wishes of his mother, who had advised him to "indict no man for assault and battery or sue him for slander." In an honor culture, a personal attack on the body could be countered only by an attack in kind.
Link.
Let's avenge the honor of the people and organizations that have donated and supported the Susan G. Komen foundation and had their metaphorical faces insulted by this craven act of political chicanery. It's an insult to the victims and survivors of breast cancer. Let's pull their nose.
Sign the petition.
6:38 PM PT: UPDATE: Send a check to Planned Parenthood!