She’s now in the news for it. Monday, amid the Planned Parenthood funding controversy that arose this month, the editor of industry publication the NonProfit Times called for Brinker’s resignation. Last week, a former board member of a Komen New York affiliate requested the same, illustrating the symbiosis between woman and mission. It’s not clear what role Brinker played in the initial choice to defund Planned Parenthood and the reversal of that decision. Komen board members, including Brinker’s son, have not returned calls for comment. One thing is clear: There would be no foundation — no pinking, no power walking, no sisterhood-of-survivors culture — if Brinker hadn’t willed it into existence.
Brinker, 65, declined, through a publicist, to comment for this article.
“Decline” is an odd verb to follow “Nancy Brinker.” In the past, the woman who turned her philanthropy into a household brand hasn’t seemed inclined to decline much of anything.
You want her to walk? She’ll walk. She’ll walk 60 miles in three days and get millions of other pavement beaters to do it, too, racing for that elusive cure. You want her to talk? She’ll write memoirs, she’ll give speeches, she’ll accept presidential appointments. She’ll pen a tribute to her sister, describing herself as the chubby one. You want her to decorate? She’ll paint the town pink, all of it, the NFL players and the great pyramids in Egypt, and the White House, too, bathed in the soft glow of a rosy lightbulb to raise breast cancer awareness. She’ll stump for women’s health in Eastern Europe, hobnob at the Kennedy Center, dally with the doyennes of Dallas.
Everybody seems to know her or know someone who does. Acquaintances describe her as savvy and driven — some in the best sense of those words, and some not.
Two sisters, disparate fates
“When I think of Nancy Brinker, I think of one woman who changed the world,” says Anita McBride, Laura Bush’s former chief of staff, who knows Brinker from Brinker’s posting as ambassador to Hungary from 2001 to 2003 and a subsequent stint as chief protocol officer during George W. Bush’s administration.
Brinker is a longtime GOP supporter and contributor. She was a “pioneer,” the term used to describe donors who gathered more than $100,000 for Bush’s presidential campaign. Her politics have been a subject of conversation in recent weeks, as critics question whether her ties to the Republican Party played into the Planned Parenthood discussions. After decades living in Dallas, she maintains residences in the District and Palm Beach, Fla.
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