There seems to be a popular line emerging in the Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke controversy that says his comments are especially harmful because they distract attention from the real issues. Kathleen Parker (Washington Post, 3/4/12): Inadvertently, Limbaugh also helped advance the argument from the left that Republicans are waging a war against women…. He has given his "feminazis" justification for their claims that conservatives hate women. Peggy Noonan (ABC's This Week, 3/4/12): But what he said was also destructive. It confused the issue. It played into this trope that the Republicans have a war on women. No, they don't, but he [...]
Mar
05
2012
Rush and the Right: The 'Clown' GOP Leaders Fear
By 30 Comments
Rush Limbaugh's attack on Georgetown student Sandra Fluke–calling her, among other things, a "slut" for advocating for contraceptives coverage–has caused some stirrings on the right that are worth looking at. One outcome is the idea that Limbaugh's an outlier who sensible people repudiated. Kathleen Parker's Washington Post column on Saturday (3/2/12) cheered Limbaugh for uniting all decent people in opposition to his crude attacks: Who'd have thought that Rush Limbaugh would become the great uniter in this divisive political season? Indeed, he has united decent people of all stripes and persuasions with his vile remarks about a Georgetown University law [...]
Nov
10
2011
Maybe Not Misunderestimated After All
By 7 Comments
Just because he wears cowboy boots and drops his G's doesn't mean he's a dummy. Perry may be a small-town boy who went to an ag school (Texas A&M University), but he's an extremely cagey and strategic politician who has been among the state's most successful governors at getting what he wants. Put another way: Even if he's not book smart by University of Chicago standards, he's plenty street smart – and street smart is still smart. The better lens through which to regard Perry is inside vs. outside, establishment vs. anti-establishment, elitist vs. jus' folks. Don't make the mistake [...]
Dec
20
2010
Kathleen Parker's Tax Cut Nonsense
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In a column (12/19/10) devoted to attacking others for "the intentional manipulations of language to obscure truth," Washington Post columnist and CNN host Kathleen Parker spends most of her time targeting Democrats overthe tax cut debate: Democrats are equally guilty of obfuscation through language distortion. How many times throughout the tax bill debate have you heard some variation of the following? Giving tax breaks to the rich will add to the deficit. Pardon? How does money in someone's own pocket add to another's debt? This sort of logic is possible, of course, only under confiscatory rules of wealth redistribution. In [...]
Dec
08
2010
The Self-Inflicted Nonpartisan Problems at CNN
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Internal problems at CNN have jumped from the gossip pages to the New York Times. Brian Stelter reports today (12/8/10) on behind-the-scenes clashesat the new program Parker Spitzer, which is co-hosted by liberal-leaning former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and conservative columnist Kathleen Parker. Stelter writes: The ratings for CNN's latest experiment are stagnant. The show has been troubled by backstage tensions that have spilled out in gossip columns and have given rise to speculation–and some wishful thinking among his supporters–that CNN could make Mr. Spitzer the sole host. CNN executives and the co-hosts flatly ruled out that outcome in [...]
Oct
25
2010
The Kathleen Parker Headline Was Enough for Me
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I clicked on the Washington Post website on Sunday and saw this: We Overreact to Prejudice Instead of Airing It Out By Kathleen Parker Only someone who's pondered Barack Obama's "fullbloodedness" and Elena Kagan's distance from "mainstream" America (hint: She's Jewish, and from New York!) can do this. Parker also wrote a memorable column about Barack Obama being too "girly," then explained in a follow-up that, unlike African-Americans,she has the "luxury of seeing people without the lens of race." Kathleen Parker is indeed an expert in "airing out" prejudice.
Jul
06
2010
Kathleen Parker Channels Stephen Colbert
By 14 Comments
Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker (umm, PULITZER Prize-winning columnist) got a lot of feedback abouther recent column ("Obama: Our First Female President," 6/30/10) suggesting that Barack Obama is kind of girly. She carefully pointed out that she was"not calling Obama a girlie president. But . . . he may be suffering a rhetorical-testosterone deficit when it comes to dealing with crises." So he's girly-sounding, I guess. Parker elaborated by suggesting that Obama "displays many tropes of femaleness. I say this in the nicest possible way." According to Parker's update column(7/4/10), many readers–including many black readers–did not think her assessment was particularly [...]
Jun
25
2010
Conservative Exclusion Is a Right-Wing Delusion
By 19 Comments
National Review senior editor Jay Nordlinger (Corner, 3/24/10), responding to CNN pairing disgraced Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer with a not-conservative-enough-for-National-Review Kathleen Parker, muses: I'm reminded why conservatives had to build their own media outlets. It's sort of like Jews and country clubs. Jews built their own, not because they wanted to, necessarily, but because the other clubs wouldn't let them in. They weren't being "clannish." They wanted to play golf, on first-class courses…. Well, we conservatives built our own media outlets–because the other clubs wouldn't let us in. I guess it's working out OK. Blogger Ryan McNeely (Yglesias, 3/24/10) takes [...]
May
12
2010
Kathleen Parker's 'Mainstream' Isn't About the Ballet Shoes
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"Elena Kagan Is Miles Away From Mainstream America" is the headline on Kathleen Parker's Washington Post column this morning (5/12/10). What exactly does that mean? Well, on first blush, it seems to have to do with where she's from: "Coincidentally, she shares the same home town as the other two women on the court. Assuming Kagan is confirmed, all three women will hail from New York." And why does this matter? "Spending one's formative years walking past the infamously crime-riddled Murder Hotel en route to school, as Kagan did–and, say, walking past the First Baptist Church to ballet class–are not [...]
