Ann Marie Buerkle: This Leopard isn't Changing

That Was Then:

Thursday, July 6, 1989

FYI, those of you for whom Buerkle is a relatively new phenom, it was on this same day, July 6, 1989, that she and her cohorts demonstrated their respect for life, and their compassion for women and health care providers, by bringing to Planned Parenthood an illegally procured, blackened foetus in a jar. During this time she was the local spokesperson for Operation Rescue and associated with extremist Randall Terry; a decade earlier she had started the local chapter of Friends for Life.

Then, this in March 2010: 

Buerkle minimizes her anti-abortion history. [Syracuse.com printed the following summary on January 23, 2011: 

       When she launched her run for Congress in [March of] 2010, Buerkle said abortion was not the issue that would define her, nor would it be a priority of her campaign....

        “I want to be really careful not to make this a referendum on abortion,” Buerkle said as she began her campaign in March 2010. “People here are concerned about jobs and the economy. I have six kids, and five of them live outside of the state because of a lack of opportunities.”

       At the time, Buerkle said her days as an anti-abortion activist were from a different part of her life, when she was a young mother and working as a nurse. “Life is an evolution,” she said in March. “You never stay in the same place."]

But then, this on July 17:

Susan B. Anthony List endorses Buerkle

This Is Now:

January 19 delivers a "passionate" speech in Congress advocating restricting and criminalizing abortion (organized by the Pro-Life Caucus)

January 20 co-sponsors "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act", H.R. 3, which extends its reach to insurance providers and another bill that would ban abortion coverage in future Federal health care provisions

January 22 walks with and addresses a March for Life gathering in Syracuse

January 24 addresses March for Life in Washington DC

February 18 votes for Pense Amendment to defund Planned Parenthood and to all stop most federal funds for women's reproductive health

February 28 Buerkle is a subject of Susan B. Anthony List's expensive ad campaign, thanking her for her vote to defund Planned Parenthood

March 2 she distances herself from the Susan B. Anthony List ad campaign, citing rules about consorting with special interest groups [Ann Marie, Really?]

March 9 she is publicly thanked for her vote to defund Planned Parenthood by Lila Rose, head of Live Action, who shows up in her big bus at the Federal Building in Syracuse [Rose is the "pro-life" advocate who deceptively and dishonestly uses altered and spliced tapes to damage Planned Parenthood]  Susan B. Anthony List helped produce this tragic piece of theatre.

Power and the Unbearable Obligation of the Elected Leader

After the election in November 2010, we heard that John Boehner met with Randall Terry in Washington. 

Terry is the extremist Right-to-Life founder and leader you may remember exhorted people to violence in his fight against abortion. He was bankrupted and spent time in jail.

He's back in public view in Washington now that the Republicans have regained the House.  He is fighting for traction.

Turns out that Boehner's chief of staff, and not Boehner as far as we know, met with Terry and a group of people he brought with him.

This led me to think about who is present at public meetings and who is not, and thus what messages about power and favor are being transmitted.


I created this handy chart, in which power is reduced to formula. All the combinations represent public meetings. Who knows what kind of dealings go on in private and over the internets?

[The principals are each given values of 10; their respective groups of people, staff, supporters etc., are represented by 4s.]

I meet with you  10:10      (indicates approximate equality of power and influence)

I meet with your people  10:4      (you are somewhere else but important to me)

I meet with you and your people 10:10+4      (ceremonial and/or you may have something I want) 

I and my people meet with you and your people 10+4:10+4      (indicates a party going on, lots of note-taking)

I and my people meet with your people  10+4:4      (you definitely have something I want; unusual)

My people meet with you and your people  4:10+4      (I am "busy" and that is all you and your people will get or, as I suspect is the difficulty for John Boehner with Randall Terry, I need to keep my public distance but you have something that I want or fear)

My people meet with you  4:10    (I am "busy" but not rude)

My people meet with your people  4:4    (blah blah blah)

Ann Marie Buerkle, of course, knows Randall Terry and worked closely with him during her early activist years. She may be working with him still. We shall find out who dares to be seen with him these days.