Ziegler: My spot proves CNN’s bias

The unasked question, was Parker a member of journolist during the 2008 election? That would be the icing on the cake.

eaglewingz08 on November 15, 2010 at 12:49 PM

No.

Parker had a reputation for years as the token conservative female at the Washed-up Post, and was frequently referred to as an intelligent alternative to the likes of Ann Coulter & Michelle Malkin, but was no more notable than that. Then, she called for McCain to dump Palin and install Romney, making her a MSM superstar overnight. But she was NEVER a Journolist type, which included people who were afraid Obama wasn’t sufficiently radical.

Earlier this year, The Daily Caller got the archives of the Journolist, and Parker was nowhere in there.

L.N. Smithee on November 15, 2010 at 6:14 PM

On the other hand, I don’t see where Ziegler is getting his proof that skank Parker endorsed Obama. It certainly isn’t anywhere in the Krauthammer or Parker columns cited.

Jaibones on November 15, 2010 at 11:01 AM

(Strikethrough mine)

You’re right. 1000% percent right. John Ziegler was out of bounds coming to the round table of CNN’s new hit series Parker/Spitzer and claiming Kathleen Parker endorsed Barack Obama’s candidacy. Ms. Parker has never written the words, “I endorse Barack Obama,” and anything less than that ought not be interpreted as an endorsement.

Right?

For the unconvinced, let us go to the printed record. To recap the closing months of the 2008 campaign on Planet Parker: After receiving the mother of all backlashes when she insulted Palin in her September 26, 2008 column, Parker responded by portraying herself as the victim of intolerance, and began insulting her audience and continued to denigrate Palin in her next three columns. This delighted the MSM, which said in effect, “If you have nothing good to say about Sarah Palin, come sit by me … on TV.” Of course, that just made matters worse among her shrinking loyal readership (or, at least among readers of Townhall.com, the increasing number of people who wanted her gone).

After that column in which she urged Palin to make up a reason to step down for the sake of America, Parker’s first piece in which Palin was not the primary focus was titled “To Appalachia … With Respect”. Here are the first words of the first sentence of that column:

If you’re a Democrat who needs help getting the votes of rural white folks …

Parker — proving herself to be the bonafide conservative that so many said she was not — went on in this vein:

[S]ometimes you can learn more about a people and their place through literature than by hiring consultants. So I called Ron Rash, poet, author and purebred Appalachian whose newest novel, “Serena,” should be at the top of Barack Obama’s reading list.

[...]

I asked Rash, with whom I’ve visited on occasion: What does Obama need to do to win the hearts and votes of Appalachia?

[...]

African-Americans built this country and got nothing back, he says. So did Appalachians. What Obama may not know is that most mountain communities were pro-Union during the Civil War. These often-impoverished descendants of the Scots-Irish weren’t slaveholders, after all. In a sense, blacks and Appalachians are natural allies.

As Virginia Sen. Jim Webb wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “The greatest realignment in modern politics would take place rather quickly if the right national leader found a way to bring the Scots-Irish and African-Americans to the same table.”

[...]

Thus, when Obama visits the region, Rash recommends that he say the following…

Just in case people doubted Parker was a conservative stalwart, she ended with this line (bold mine):

Straight talk without condescension is all anyone asks. It may be all Obama needs to finish the race.

But that’s not an endorsement. Right?

In her October 17, 2008 column “The Buckley Son Rises – And Runs” in which she addresses Christopher Buckley’s endorsement of Obama (which I also evaluated on my blog), Parker wrote:

Christopher Buckley’s endorsement of Barack Obama — followed by his abrupt departure from the back page of the magazine his father [William F. Buckley, Jr.] founded, National Review — has caused a ripple of contempt from the conservative right.

Nay, make that a tsunami of hostility. An avalanche of venom. A cataclysm of … well, you get the idea. People are mad. Good riddance, they say, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

[...]

I am not a passive bystander to these events. Buckley is a friend … Like Buckley, I have enjoyed a decent fragging for suggesting that Sarah Palin excuse herself from the Republican ticket.

Parker ended that column with (bold mine)…

Republicans are not short on brainpower — or pride — but they have strayed off course. They do not, in fact, deserve to win this time, and someone had to remind them why.

Christopher Buckley, ever the swashbuckling heir to his father’s defiant spirit, walked the plank so that the sinking mother ship might right itself.

No doubt his seafaring father is cheering from heaven: “Ahoy there, Christo! Well done, my son.”

But that’s not an endorsement. Right?

On October 22, 2008, Parker wrote regarding correspondence she insists she received in recent weeks from folks who said they’re Republicans:

Sitting quietly at their desks are an unknown number of discreet conservatives who surprise themselves as they mull their options. Appalled by McCain’s erratic behavior, both in dealing with the financial crisis and his selection of an unsuitable running mate, they will quietly (and with considerable trepidation) vote for Obama.

Are they are worried about higher taxes, a premature withdrawal from Iraq, and Obama’s inexperience in matters executive? You betcha. But they do not want to vote for a divisive, anti-intellectual ticket headed by a man who, though they admire him, lately has made them embarrassed to be Republicans.

Nope. No endorsement dat. Am I right, peoples?

Two days later, on October 24, 2008, Parker’s column “Maverick’s Big Mistake” got off to this (ahem) rousing start:

My husband called it first. Then, a brilliant, 75-year-old scholar and raconteur confessed to me over wine: “I’m sexually attracted to [Palin]. I don’t care that she knows nothing.”

After citing a doubtlessly unbiased treatise on McCain’s decision on Palin by a writer for the New York Times, Parker opined:

[T]here can be no denying that McCain’s selection of her over others far more qualified — and his mind-boggling lack of attention to details that matter — suggests other factors at work. His judgment may have been clouded by … what?

Science provides clues. A study in Canada, published in New Scientist in 2003, found that pretty women foil men’s ability to assess the future. “Discounting the future,” as the condition is called, means preferring immediate, lesser rewards to greater rewards in the future.

Drug dealers, car salesmen and politicians rely on this affliction and pray feverishly for its persistence.

So Parker cited a study about sex appeal turning men’s brains to Jell-O in the same breath in which she wonders “…what?” could have been McCain’s reason to select Palin.

Who among us would call that an endorsement of McCain’s opponent? Anybody? Anyone? Bueller?

Finally, let’s consider Parker’s final column before the 2008 election, which kicked off with this definitely un-snarky remarky:

It is hard to imagine that “undecideds,” like restless phantoms with unfinished business, still haunt these final hours.

What can they be waiting for? An epiphany? Some final bit of information to tip the scale? A hidden corpse, an illegitimate child, a beloved aunt living in public housing?

After dismissing the “Auntie Zeituni” discovery in the final countdown to Dixville Notch’s polls opening, Parker focused on Obama’s final appeal via a his nationally-televised informercial with six days remaining:

What else don’t we know, and how much does it matter to the undecideds, who represent about 8 percent of the voting public? If they tuned in to Obama’s Wednesday night infomercial, they were greeted by a man more Reaganesque than Reagan. Calm, soothing and reassuring, he presented real-people stories and real-people solutions with the voice and demeanor of Mr. Rogers. One kept expecting him to trade his shoes and jacket for sneakers and a dye-free sweater.

What did Parker say when she met one of those mysteriously betwixt folk? Let’s listen as she tells the tale:

So what are these zombies of the voting booth really waiting for? Something they won’t find: The perfect choice. It doesn’t exist. The clear path is dappled with doubt.

[...]

A friend’s late-night call cast light on the undecided’s milieu. She was filling out her ballot at home and had made every choice but one. The presidential ticket. “I just can’t quite bring myself to do it. I hate Sarah Palin. Help me out here.” I laughed.

[...]

Here’s what I told her. Make two lists — one of tangibles (war, taxes, health care) and one of intangibles [(hope, change, the end of race in identity politics, Jesse Jackson's permanent retirement)] — assign a value (1-5) to each, and take out your calculator. Discount race unless it really matters, in which case, shred your ballot. If McCain gets the highest score, then pray he inherited his mother’s longevity gene.

Parker’s final words before she cast her own ballot:

Four years ago, Obama famously described his vision of America as neither liberal nor conservative, neither black, white, Latin nor Asian. “There’s the United States of America,” he said. “We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.” Should he win on Tuesday, let’s hope he meant it.

So, my long-suffering readers, there you have it. John Ziegler is most definitely mistaken, if not slanderous in his assertion; there’s no way any fair person could objectively suggest that Kathleen Parker “endorsed” Barack Obama’s candidacy for President in 2008.

Right? Right.

Now that we’ve settled that, if you’ll excuse me, I have to leave. I don’t want to be late for my flight to Atlantis. That pegasus won’t wait.

L.N. Smithee on November 16, 2010 at 3:37 AM