Kathleen Parker hates Sarah Palin, that much we knew from her poison pen columns. Now the cat’s out of the bag as to why: it’s because Palin is a Christian. In Parker’s view, Palin’s religion – that of the most solid part of the Republican base – is responsible for the party’s failures at the ballot box over the last 4 years.
Nonsense. The Bush administration’s incompetence was like hot pink lipstick on a Democratic pig – just enough to make independent voters lay a big wet one on him while holding their noses.
Parker:
The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it.
But they need those votes!
So it has been for the Grand Old Party since the 1980s or so, as it has become increasingly beholden to an element that used to be relegated to wooden crates on street corners.
Short break as writer ties blindfold and smokes her last cigarette.
Which is to say, the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.
What a drama queen, bravely facing the firing squad of conservative commentators after one last puff on her cancer stick.
For all of Parker’s demographic hyperbole, the 2008 election was nothing more than a referendum on the departing president’s policies and (lack of) achievements. What’s more, I think she, like others in the media, star-struck by Barack Obama, knows that and is working hard to try to make people believe that something more happened two weeks ago.
The Obama change movement was all about getting rid of President Bush and anyone associated with him. Who can blame voters for that? Not me. But let’s not make more of it that what it was.
Republicans would be ill-advised to let media pundits with anti-Christian agendas like Parker’s drive a wedge between social and fiscal conservatives. Both wings of the party are needed to create a strong, broad base of appeal and to promote the right policies for the country. Dissolution of that coalition would mean decades of Democratic rule – the exact thing that this country can’t afford to have happen and the very notion that an overly liberal media has now overtly embraced.