I have to agree with Jonah Goldberg that this "let's eat our own" schtick that has infected certain pundits, causing them to debase and denegrate certain factions in the GOP. Here's from Parker's column today:
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.
If Kathleen Parker wants the Republicans to become the permanent minority she remembers from her youth, that's her opinion. But I fail to see how mocking and sneering at a certain faction of the party is going to make us a majority.
Calling committed Christians "oogedy-boogedy" will get you a lot more invites to Chris Matthews show (and probably Keith Olbermann's), and that may be the point. But as Jonah Goldberg writes, it's getting old really fast.
I don't know what's more grating, the quasi-bigotry that has you calling religious Christians low brows, gorillas and oogedy-boogedy types or the bravery-on-the-cheap as you salute — in that winsome way — your own courage for saying what (according to you) needs to be said. Please stop bragging about how courageous you are for weathering a storm of nasty email you invite on yourself by dancing to a liberal tune. You aren't special for getting nasty email, from the right or the left. You aren't a martyr smoking your last cigarette. You're just another columnist, talented and charming to be sure, but just another columnist. You are not Joan of the Op-Ed Page. Perhaps the typical Washington Post reader (or editor) doesn't understand that. But you should, and most conservatives familiar with these issues can see through what you're doing.
For the record, I have no problem with arguments about how the GOP has become too religious. I ended my book with pretty much that argument. I opposed Mike Huckabee vociferously because he seemed the quintessential rightwing progressive imbued with a rightwing social gospel. These are all good arguments to make and they have good responses to them. But please drop the nonsense about how the G-O-D people or the Palin people are low brows and beasts. There are low brows and beasts everywhere, on every side of the ideological spectrum. Maybe if you got more ecumenical hate email you'd realize that.
Parker's not courageous or "speaking truth to power." She's a whiner. She gets hate mail? Really? Gosh, like no one who writes anything anywhere doesn't get that. Left, right or centrist, you're gonna get a large volume of hate mail from time to time. Some people will argue that you should be dead or (if a woman) raped. Others will try to threaten your livelihood. Some people are low enough to say disgusting things about your family and children.
Well, guess what, Kathleen? Time to put on your big girl panties and stop acting like a whiny baby. You're no martyr. Just a whiner. You don't like the fact that Sarah Palin was hugely popular with the base and you aren't.
There are arguments that can be made about the place of religious people within the GOP, or the emphasis the party should place on social values. But insulting a committed constituency isn't going to grow the party at all. But maybe, like Andrew Sullivan, you aren't really all that concerned about the party.
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