I’m beginning to think that something bad happened to Kathleen Parker about two months ago. Either a random Christian ran up behind her and yelled “boo” which caused her to drop her expensive Starbucks latte or someone told her that Sarah Palin was a hell of a lot hotter than she is.
Whatever happened, it has sent her right over the edge into frothing rabid knuckeheadedness. Witness this snippet from her latest column, which I suspect was scrawled on a strip of toilet paper in crayon and smuggled out of the hospital by a sympathetic orderly.
As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.
Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.
I’m bathing in holy water as I type.
To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn’t soon cometh.
Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth — as long as we’re setting ourselves free — is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.
It doesn’t get better from there, but she does manage to slip in a few digs at her favorite target, Sarah Palin, and the jealousy that oozes from her insults is moderately entertaining to read.
The only thing I can really say besides “Kathleen, seek professional help” is “Lighten up!”. The Republicans lost an election, and not by a huge landslide. If Barack Obama had topped even 55 percent of the vote, she might have grounds for panic, but he didn’t. And he was running with a considerable tailwind against a candidate who, believe it or not, ran a worse campaign than either John Kerry or Al Gore. The GOP wasn’t helped at all by their members of Congress who spent their time in the majority figuring out new and interesting ways to embarrass themselves and Republicans in general. The party should have been using the last two years to clean up its act. Instead, it circled the wagons around such undeserving and distasteful figured as Ted Stevens and Larry Craig and decided to act as much like low-rent Democrats as possible. I’m surprised they didn’t take a worse beating than they did. The only reason that they didn’t is because of groups like Evangelical Christians who held their noses and voted Republican. Parker has plenty of insults, but not a shred of evidence to back her up. All she has left is what’s turning into a nice little case of Andrew Sullivanism.
Instead of excoriating religious Republican, Parker should be thanking them. They helped save us from an unstoppable Democratic juggernaut and she can’t prove otherwise.
(via Stacy McCain, who has a much better explanation than “Ooooooo…I hate them Christians”)
UPDATE: The Anchoress is all over this as well. She calls it “[s]taggering bigotry” which is exactly right. What makes Parkers casual bigotry more distasteful than usual is that she’s doing it not because there’s a closely-held principle at stake but for the popularity and to hit back against some undoubtedly wicked e-mails she received once upon a time.
Tags: Conservatism, Religion, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Ted Stevens
I think many of the Republicans are now afflicted with that same metal disorder that causes liberals to judge their own self worth based upon what Europeans think of them. Whether they are insulting Christians or Hank Jr. fans, these oh so smart people seem to think they’re wise enough to win an election as they heap scorn on more than half their party. These high-minded, snooty, liberal Republicans are just like liberal Democrats; no tolerance for religion at all. (At least not for people who act like they mean it.)