If Kathleen Parker Was Just A Bit Less Masculine, She Might Be David Brooks

Posted on | November 20, 2011 | 34 Comments

by Smitty

Via Hot Air, we have Kathleen Parker going down a list of Paul Begala arguments regurgitated from Newsweek. She very vaguely seems to be trying to dispute Begala’s title “The Stupid Party” as a moniker for the GOP, but comes across more as: “Don’t. Stop. Don’t stop.” Yet another faux-conservative writer whose desire for the acceptance of the elite makes her look an abject fool on paper.

In this tired Lefty myth, the right’s John Bircher extremists were vanquished by Buckley, but then Reagan’s tent got too big, and those extremist knuckle-draggers came back to submerge the GOP in barbarism:

Meanwhile, the big tent fashioned by Ronald Reagan has become bilious with the hot air of religious fervor. No one was more devout than the very-Catholic Buckley, but you didn’t see him convening revivals in the public square. Nor is it likely he would have embraced fundamentalist views that increasingly have forced the party into a corner where science and religion can’t coexist.
Scientific skepticism, the engine that propels intellectual inquiry, has morphed into skepticism of science fueled by religious certitude. In this strange world, it is heresy to express concern about, for example, climate change — or even to suggest that human behavior may be a contributing factor. Jon Huntsman committed blasphemy when he told ABC’s Jake Tapper that he trusts scientists on global warming.

The fact that conservatives are fine with conservation, but not so keen on Ruling Class stock market manipulation scams, would be lost on Parker. Kathleen may be either (a) making her own pile of cash on the scam, or (b) dumb as a mud hut, or (c) both. Conservatives are not paranoid; the global warming scam is increasing revealed as honest scientists break through the hack researcher/politician/green lobby triangle with proper skepticism. However, the transparent media drive to force-feed a Huntsman candidacy (did you catch him on SNL’s Weekend Update segment? Really? Oh, wait, that part had Kermit the Frog, the other muppet) would be a really funny farce, if it was not such a flipping serious threat.

It takes courage to swim against the tide of know-nothingness that has become de rigueur among the anti-elite, anti-intellectual Republican base. Call it the Palinization of the GOP, in which the least informed earns the loudest applause. The latest to this spectacle is Herman Cain, who has figured out how to turn his liabilities into assets. After fumbling for an answer during an editorial board meeting to a simple question about his position on Libya, a lead news item since February, Cain blamed — who else? — the media.

Parker, if our elite had any arete, and our so-called intellectuals were more than the cast of Deliverance, hold the banjos, having you for their herald, your argument might work. Seriously. What do you think a James Madison would do to a worm like Harry Reid? I’m not coming out in favor of a resurgence in dueling, mind you, but faced with the sort of actual intellectuals and war heros who founded this country, Barney Frank’s likely reaction would be incontinence.

“Palinization of the GOP”

I had let myself get talked into a WaPoo subscription about a year ago, and suspended it while I was deployed to Afghanistan. And so your dreck has been cluttering my driveway, Kathleen. However, I believe I shall call the WaPoo and tell them to cancel my subscription, based upon the rank idiocy of your characterization of the political movement that will recover this country. The exceptional American tradition of liberty does come down through Buckley, and Reagan to the Tea Parties. Sure, Sarah is there, but she knows it’s not about her. Your sad little Alinskyite attempt to “Pick the Target,Freeze It, Personalize It and Polarize It” is an insult to the intellectual, meritocratic resurgence that is the Tea Party. These resurgence blows your ruling-class brain cell, I know, Kathleen, but the American people have figured out that there is something stinky in American culture. That stench is your ilk.

So you take the cheap “Palinization” shot, and then your little river of bile slows to a trickle as you hold forth Newt as a means of redemption:

there are signs that the GOP is recognizing its weaknesses and is ready to play smarter. To wit: The sudden surge of Gingrich, who, whatever his flaws and despite the weight of his considerable baggage, is no intellectual slouch. Whether he can pull off a victory in Iowa remains to be seen, but a populist professor — a bombastic smarty-pants Republicans can call their own — may be just the ticket.

You couldn’t have mischaracterized the situation any more fully, Kathleen, without saying that Newt is really a mere stalking-horse for Huntsman. What’s really going on is that the Survivor-style series of GOP gotcha debates are making all of the top-tier candidates look relatively shallow. But the media effort to shape the narrative is turning out to be more about how utterly stupid the media is than anything else.

Whoever remains standing on the island after the primaries is going to have strong Tea Party support, and then about a honey-week instead of a honeymoon after the election. The winner is going to be expected to repeal (and I do not mean re-label) ObamaCare within hours, assuming Elena Kagan’s Mission Impossible: SCOTUS Edition efforts are successful. ObmaCare cannot be to the GOP winner what GITMO is to BHO, or that GOP winner will be metaphorically whisked off to GITMO to ponder the sins.

Why, Kathleen? Because you’re completely wrong. There is no ‘Palinization of the GOP’. There is a ‘de-personalization of the conservatives’. We really don’t even care about the GOP as such. The pragmatic analysis is that the Commies did a relatively better job infiltrating the Democrat Party than the GOP. With less Commie rot to clear out, the likelihood of success with the GOP is higher in recovering the country. But really–shag the GOP! A union is a corporation without a product, and a political party is a union that doesn’t stage walk-outs. That’s about as much regard as can be afforded the GOP as such. The GOP’s list of positive contributions to American history, while significant, are only as meaningful as the next pro-Constitutional act carried out by the people who associate themselves with the Republican label, however loosely.

Sure, I intend to write in Sarah Palin in the primaries. Both as a statement of regard for an excellent American whose ideas could substantially remove so much of the rot that miscalls itself our government, and as someone who stands undaunted by the poo-flinging Parker-ite pygmies populating politics today. Does it matter? No, it’s a pure protest vote at the primary.

The hope is that whoever does take the nomination looks at the numbers and realizes that the jig is up. The traditional Ruling Class swerve to the center, as conducted by BHO, and then just play the DC game after the election, Will Not Do. That tactic ran out of gas $5 trillion back. It’s done. Whoever you are, GOP Primary Victor, you’re going to be elected as a reformer, or the Tea Party that gets you elected is going to turn on you, and make you regret you didn’t opt for the spinal implant.

Via Insty, David “Estrogen-boy” Brooks remains the same jolly piece of work he ever was. This time, the topic is the Stupor Committee:

“Yes, I mean, I’m hearing the exact same thing,” Brooks said. “I think the tragedy of it is, if it was ever going to work, it was going to work under these circumstances. The rules were rigged to make a deal as possible as possible as possible, which is to say there was going to be a clean vote on the House. They were going to meet in private. They had this sword of Damocles hanging over them. And they still couldn’t reach a deal.”
According to Brooks, with this missed opportunity and other missed opportunities over the years – it doesn’t bode well for any deal in the future. And that he says means the United States will eventually face a Greek-like situation.

The only reason we’re getting Greeked here, David, is the likes of you and Kathleen &c who have blown Progressive sunshine up the public bottom these decades.

You have the gall to denigrate the actual ideas of patriots of the Palin caliber, which could make a difference, while coddling up to the Ruling Class Overlords who are the cause of the woes. Get stuffed, you worthless sack. If your Pundit Card had any less value, it would be a Raaaaace Card. Your worthlessness shines in the way you never espouse liberty, American Exceptionalism, State’s rights, or, any ideas of value. Your chief value is in helping to identify valuable conservative leadership by process of elimination; anybody you favor simply isn’t worth a hoot. Could you fall off the planet, and take Kathleen with you?

Update: linked at Daily Pundit, if only for the use of an obscure word.

Category: Intellectuals, Newt Gingrich, Republicans

Comments

34 Responses to “If Kathleen Parker Was Just A Bit Less Masculine, She Might Be David Brooks”

Randy G
November 20th, 2011 @ 8:40 am

Do these freakish folks who call themselves journalist all live in the basement? Just read each others trash and agree? I frigging despise the media more than democrats.
Joe
November 20th, 2011 @ 8:59 am

Intellectually, yeah, they are in the basement. They of course aspire materially to the penthouse. And the fastest way to get there as a journalist is NOT being a conservative, but actively selling out conservative principles. If it wasn’t for talk radio and some blogs we would be screwed.

Kathleen Parker is annoyed that she has competition now from new “conservative” pundit Jen Rubin. Jeff Goldstein questions whether she is really a lefty plant: http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=32185 Dan Riehl also questions Rubin: http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2011/11/jennifer-rubin-found-gold.html
Joe
November 20th, 2011 @ 9:07 am

Think on how David Brooks does it. His attempts at writing novels are generally failing. His fiction sucks. So he gets a gig at the New York Times and NPR, not to be a conservative vocie there, but to act more as a cultural anthropologist to explain conservatives to his lefty audience. David Brooks is like Jane Goodall studying chimpaneses at Goma…

Smitty do you have any bananas? I am out.
smitty
November 20th, 2011 @ 9:22 am

I read a review of Brooks’ latest outing. It sounded like pure, self-congratulatory style in place of substance. Brooks seems to find pride in de basement.
Or maybe he’s so spiritually dead as to miss the fact that his characterization of the human condition is as repugnant as his politics.
Joe
November 20th, 2011 @ 9:33 am

Or maybe he’s so spiritually dead as to miss the fact that his characterization of the human condition is as repugnant as his politics.

Life is too short to waste on David Brooks books.
chuck coffer
November 20th, 2011 @ 9:39 am

Notice how she uses the language of religion to describe things that have nothing to do with religion. It’s a neat twofer. She get’s to defend leftist causes and shit all over Christians all at the same time. Talk about an economy of words!
Dana
November 20th, 2011 @ 9:42 am

Great line: “faced with the sort of actual intellectuals and war heros who founded this country, Barney Frank’s likely reaction would be incontinence.”
Anonymous
November 20th, 2011 @ 9:50 am

“Your sad little Alinskyite attempt to ‘Pick the Target, Freeze It, Personalize It and Polarize It’ is an insult to the intellectual, meritocratic resurgence that is the Tea Party.”

Exceptionally well played, Smitty. I keep hoping the Right will point out The Rules when they’re applied. As of yet, we’ve been a bit slow on the uptake, but you spotted one.

As to Parker, she does realize that when we refer to her “intellectuals” and “elite” by those terms, we really don’t mean it, right? I actually have to wonder about that since she is a card-carrying member.
Joe
November 20th, 2011 @ 9:54 am

“Keep Kathleen Parker before you, she who trumpets for the American establishment. It’s good to keep tabs on the ever evolving, wickedly smart, amazingly sophisticated perceptions of the very people grassroots conservatives need to defeat.”

Ha! (from the HA article)
Anonymous
November 20th, 2011 @ 9:59 am

“…Call it the Palinization of the GOP, in which the least informed earns the loudest applause…”

Poor Kathleen. Palin’s still living rent free in her head. Palin has to be wondering, “Just what the heck am I going to do with all this empty space!?”
Anonymous
November 20th, 2011 @ 10:43 am

And yet I’m sure your advice is to vote ORomney in the general. That advice negates this entire column.

Smitty, I’ve seen this too many times in my day job as a software systems architect. Sooner or later, every system is patched, extended, and modified to the point that it no longer carries out its’ original requirements. At that point, you have to scrub the hardware to the bare wood, go back to the requirements, and re-implement them, pruning out the deadwood. This process is not pretty, it’s not without cost, and one of those costs is getting rid of anyone who won’t cheerfully work with the system. It’s also usually only done when a catastrophic failure of the old system occurs. We’re at that point.

I’m not investing another dime or another vote in someone who loves the current way of doing business as much as ORomney repeatedly shows he does.
ThePaganTemple
November 20th, 2011 @ 11:05 am

You call what David Brooks does aspiring to the Penthouse? I think its more like he aspires to the closet where he keeps his Playgirl collection.
Joe
November 20th, 2011 @ 11:45 am

I don’t ask, or try to think, aboout what turns David Brooks on. I am sure it is something I would not get and would not like.
Anonymous
November 20th, 2011 @ 12:29 pm

So you’ve developed a reliable method for accurately determining the difference between the media and the Social Democrats?
Anonymous
November 20th, 2011 @ 12:38 pm

“pruning out the deadwood” now that’s a useful euphemism, unfortunately catastrophic failure is more likely before we actualize the “pruning”.
Gotcha | Daily Pundit
November 20th, 2011 @ 12:39 pm

[…] Posted on November 20, 2011 9:39 am by Bill Quick If Kathleen Parker Was Just A Bit Less Masculine, She Might Be David Brooks : The Other McCain Parker, if our elite had any […]
Anonymous
November 20th, 2011 @ 12:45 pm

Death to the Oikophobic Ruling Class Overlords!
dr kill
November 20th, 2011 @ 2:16 pm

Dude, you convinced me – cancel the fucking subscription already. It is remarkable how much better you will feel without a daily paper. Why keep paying your own firing squad?
Laboheme
November 20th, 2011 @ 2:52 pm

Hey Smitty, got a light?
Anonymous
November 20th, 2011 @ 3:36 pm

Oh, the catastrophic failure is a pre-requisite; it usually takes that before management (which in the larger case is us, the voters) recognizes that the Same Shit Different Day won’t get it done anymore.

Which is why I’ll vote for Obama over Romney: give management the boning they’ve earned, nay begged for.
Weirddave
November 20th, 2011 @ 4:48 pm

She should put a nice stuffed moose head on the wall.
Randy G
November 20th, 2011 @ 5:04 pm

Point taken, there is no damn difference.
Anonymous
November 20th, 2011 @ 5:45 pm

I can appreciate not voting for Romney say by voting for Ray Barr or Cthulhu. Voting for Obama is an affirmative act of evil.
Bob Belvedere
November 20th, 2011 @ 6:58 pm

Place them all in a spreadsheet and they all fall into the Fifth Column.
Bob Belvedere
November 20th, 2011 @ 7:01 pm

It involves creases and zippers. You. Don’t. Wanna. Know.
Bob Belvedere
November 20th, 2011 @ 7:05 pm

Investor’s Business Daily or the New York Post only, if you must.
JeffS
November 20th, 2011 @ 9:42 pm

I always thought that Kathleen Parker was a clone of David Brooks, with a missing chromosome.
Adjoran
November 21st, 2011 @ 3:56 am

Yup. It’s one of those things that if you don’t already know what it is, you definitely don’t wanna know.
Adjoran
November 21st, 2011 @ 3:56 am

Or put them all in a bedspread and drop them off the Fifth Street Bridge.
Adjoran
November 21st, 2011 @ 3:58 am

Anything which results in Ms. Parker using fewer words, I’m for it.
Adjoran
November 21st, 2011 @ 4:00 am

So you will risk the country to probe your point?

Do you have some self-sufficient private island, or are you just sadistic?
Anonymous
November 21st, 2011 @ 6:56 am

The country is already at risk. I simply refuse to lose more slowly to maintain the illusion.
Bob Belvedere
November 21st, 2011 @ 7:17 am

Either way sends a good message.
Bob Belvedere
November 21st, 2011 @ 7:19 am

Like when it comes to Furries.