Video revelations from the Center for Medical Progress are hurting Planned Parenthood more than anything in the history of the organization.  You can tell by the determined efforts of PP and its allies to discredit the revelations.  PP's latest gambit in this direction was a "report" from "the research firm" Fusion GPS – commissioned and paid for by, you guessed it, Planned Parenthood.

I was dreading the need to examine this report.  I expected 120 pages of dense technical analysis.  Imagine my relief when I clicked on the link and found a mere ten-page summation!  That's a sixth of the length of the transcript from the eighth video alone.

Surprise: the report commissioned by Planned Parenthood vindicates Planned Parenthood.  There are some things in the news that not even the canniest observer can predict.

The most important statement made in the report is that Fusion GPS's "analysts found no evidence that CMP inserted dialogue not spoken by Planned Parenthood staff" (p. 2).  The rest of the "findings" are reiterations of Planned Parenthood's established talking point that the videos are "heavily edited."  This being the case, it is clear that Planned Parenthood's representatives did in general say on tape the things reported of them.  And that is evidence enough of a lot of things.

The real purpose of the "report" is to supply an occasion for die-hard leftist operations to print stories that vindicate Planned Parenthood.  A typical fulfillment of this purpose was the story by Laura Bassett at The Huffington Post, which represented the videos as "totally manipulated" rather than "heavily edited."  The headline on a reprint at the News Locker reads "totally cooked" – which would imply that the videos were not edited, but fabricated.  Keep in mind that you are supposed to read only the headlines.

Mark Hemingway of the Weekly Standard identifies Fusion GPS as a Democrat opposition research firm, and one that's had its own ethical problems in the past.  But the best way to view the widely circulated "report" is as the testimony of a set of hired expert witnesses.  Of course they say what Planned Parenthood needs them to say.  If they didn't, PP would hire other experts.  The point is that, when expert witnesses are produced by one side in court, opposing expert witnesses are typically produced by the other side.  And there is no doubt that CMP can produce qualified experts who support the accuracy of its videos.

By producing its expert witnesses in advance of trial, Planned Parenthood means to prevent the trial from occurring in the first place – and therefore to prevent the opposing experts from having their say.  The nation really needs to hear from those other experts.  Has anyone ever found out whether Dr. Mary Gatter got her Lamborghini?

Tom Riley is well-known as a poet of the formalist school and maintains a blog entitled Flammeus Gladius.