The Anchoress thinks so:
After reading this execrable bit of bigotry and preening martyrdom by Kathleen Parker - who apparently has discovered that the magic formula for “instant media love” is “going maverick on your own tribe,” - I am considering adding her to my list of Media Whores and Sad She-Clowns who - in excessive spurts of spirit brought on by sudden media praise - cross lines and go way too far.
Parker, who had her right-wing, “Christianist” Conservative moments until she found her Smart-Kid-Inclusion sword while participating in the Great Big Piling-On of Palin ‘08, is now running free on a ragged field, inviting attention by waving the blade a bit recklessly.
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.
Oh, no! Poor Parker has to bathe in Holy Water, to ward off the evil thoughts being projected her way by the Christians. Later she talks about having her “last cigarette,” because obviously, the Religious Right - all of whom look and act exactly like Carrie White’s mother - will destroy her for speaking out against what she perceives as the unhealthy dominance of religious expression within the GOP.
Parker may actually be making a point worth considering when she argues that the Religious Right is a bit louder than it (or any distinct interest) should be in a political party - and that their exuberance may be off-putting to secularists and those who practice a quieter sort of worship - but she discredits herself, and her argument, in the way she makes it, which is by calling such people gorillas and lowbrows:
Which is to say, the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows.
Aw, all the folks who consider themselves intellectuals (or who wish the victorious-left would) are so put off by the commoners filling the ranks of the right! Those “oogedy-boogedy” Evangelicals.
And then she really gets pissed.
An amazing take-down worthy of your time and much deserved.
The Anchoress links to Ace, and Ace links to Jonah Goldberg's takedown which is glorious in the way it cleanly sidesteps all the moose feces. Do check it out.
As for this talk about a knuckle-dragging base, real conservatives aren't buying into it. There's a simple reason why: FACTS. If only the people with bad breath understand two plus two is four, two plus two remains four. If everyone who thinks five squared equals twenty-five happens to be wearing clothes a whole generation out of date, five squared is still twenty-five.
Conservatism is all about NOT changing what you think, to convince some nameless faceless third party you're a glorious and decent person. It's about having a memory regarding what ideas are bad, don't work, have been tried and found to be injurious, and understanding & living according to cause and effect -- not about being hip in your gender, whiteness-or-lack-thereof, secularism, sex-preference, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
What's written above is completely freakin' obvious. So where's the part where I'm supposed to be just bowled over by the intellectual acumen of those who write for thet Washington Post, and those who read it?
Posted by: Morgan K Freeberg | Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at 10:17 PM