Good for them, after an appropriate firestorm of “bad for them.” The Komen people, who collect more money than some small countries, backs away from its transparently political actions against women and Planned Parenthood.

For an outfit that depends on the goodness and goodwill of so many others to amass its gargantuan assets (neartly $500 million) and Super Bowl-sized contributions to excellent causes with those peoples’ money, the Komens should have known better than to listen to the rogue rightwing elements that risked cracking an empire from which a lot of good can come from good-hearted people’s contributions. Awash in their pink ribbons and heady worthinesses, they could forget a simple truth: They are not giving out their own money.

Everyone once in a while I get midnight twinges recalling when I co-ran my newspaper’s strong United Way campaign how — waaay off on the horizon — a cloud was a-building over the high-handed and contemptible practices of the heads of the United Way’s national leadership. As it developed, as we were trying to shake nickles and imes from the local tree the moguls atop United Way were found to be living like kings and spending like Wall Street princes — on our efforts. Much more important, they were living like that on the contributions of people who were good enough to give their money to help people actually in need.

The comparsion isn’t perfect, of course: that was crooked and stupid while the Komen mess is political and ideological. And stupid. But the effect risks being the same. People slowed down in their support. We volunteers had to overcome the outrageous decisions of those far away to help the homeless, the ill, the needy, the battered. United Way recovered over time but years of effort were required and the dry-up of money had a very real impact on people who needed it — needed it more than the moguls needed their jets and shortstop-sized salaries.

The Komen Campaign will continue to do good works with the hundreds and hundreds of millions given to them by others. That they cruelly made it harder for themselves at the expense of those who might better benefit from the money is something they need to take a very hard look at. Not only how they to recover from this mess they made for political reasons, but how they got into it in the first place.