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Last month, conservative columnist Kathleen Parker wrote a scathing column saying that Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) is “way out of her league” as the GOP’s vice presidential candidate and called on the Alaska governor to “bow out” of the race in order to “save McCain, her party, and the country she loves.”
Parker has subsequently noted angry responses from conservatives around the country. “To the GOP base, predictably, I’m a traitor,” Parker wrote.
Last night on the Colbert Report, Parker reiterated her belief that Palin is not qualified for the GOP ticket, but she also revealed that some White House officials have told her that they secretly agree:
COLBERT: Now but you said you got emails from people in the White House who secretively –
PARKER: Did I say that?
COLBERT: Yes you did. You said you secretly got emails from people in the White House but you wouldn’t name who they were, who said that they agreed with you.
PARKER: That’s correct. I got a lot of off-the-record emails and a lot of phone calls from people who said, you’re saying what we’ve been saying.
Watch it here (starting at 2:06)
Indeed, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) choice of Palin as his running mate has stirred the conservative establishment. New York Times columnist David Brooks has said that Palin is “a fatal cancer” on the GOP and said he prefers someone “who’s read a few more books.”
After calling the race “over” in response to Palin’s selection, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan has offered only tepid praise of Palin, saying she mainly shows a “great and natural competence about the show business of politics.”
Responding to Palin’s critics on the right, McCain said, “Now if there’s a Georgetown cocktail party person who quote calls himself a conservative and doesn’t like her, good luck, good luck, fine.”
Source: Think Progress
Palin doesn’t take kindly to being criticized – she has gone out her way to ruin people who she feels have crossed her ….
Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a dumpster, but since she didn’t, I should “off” myself.
Click to see spilling the beans - when Palin says the facts and figures don't matter.
Who says public discourse hasn’t deteriorated?
The fierce reaction to my column has been both bracing and enlightening. After 20 years of column writing, I’m familiar with angry mail. But the past few days have produced responses of a different order. Not just angry, but vicious and threatening.
Some of my usual readers feel betrayed because I previously have written favorably of Palin. By changing my mind and saying so, I am viewed as a traitor to the Republican Party — not a “true” conservative.
Obviously, I’m not employed by the GOP. If I were, the party is seriously in arrears. But what is a true conservative? One who doesn’t think or question and who marches in lock step with The Party?
The emotional pitch of many comments suggests an overinvestment in Palin as “one of us.”
Palin’s fans say they like her specifically because she’s an outsider, not part of the Washington club. When she flubs during interviews, they identify with that, too. “You see the lack of polish, we applaud it,” one reader wrote.
Of course, there’s a difference between a lack of polish and a lack of coherence. Some of Palin’s interview responses can’t even be critiqued on their merits because they’re so nonsensical. But even that is someone else’s fault, say Palin supporters. The media make her uncomfortable.
Or, it’s the fault of those slick politicos who are overmanaging her. “Let Sarah be Sarah” has become the latest rallying cry among my colleagues on the right. She’ll be fine if we just leave her alone, they say. Between prayers, I might add.
Not all my mail has been mean-spirited. A fair number of the writers politely expressed disappointment; others, relief and gratitude. Still others offered reasonable arguments aimed at changing my mind. I may yet.
In the meantime, though, I would note that this assault and my decision to write about it aren’t really about me — or even Sarah Palin. The mailbag is about us, our country, and what we really believe.
That we have become a partisan nation is no secret. This week has provided a vivid example of where rabid partisanship leads with the failure of Congress to pass a bailout bill vitally needed to keep our economy from unraveling.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave a partisan speech, blaming the credit crisis on the Bush administration (omitting the Clinton administration’s role in launching the subprime lending debacle). Republicans responded by voting against the bill.
Everyone’s to blame, by the way.
But when you have been in power for eight years – it’s your hands on the wheel – sorry – i.e. that’s the Republicans.
And subprime mortgages will continue – but need to be better regulated – against such things as the lying on the application form – by unscrupulous mortgage brokers – in addition people should be given all the facts about their mortgages – up front – especially where the low interests starters or incentives are concerned.
Such extreme partisanship has a crippling effect on government, which may be desirable at times, but not now. More important in the long term is the less tangible effect of stifling free speech. My mail paints an ugly picture and a bleak future if we do not soon correct ourselves.
The picture is this: Anyone who dares express an opinion that runs counter to the party line will be silenced. That doesn’t sound American to me, but Stalin would approve.
Readers have every right to reject my opinion. But when we decide that a person is a traitor and should die for having an opinion different from one’s own, we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk. (I hear you, Dixie Chicks.)
I’m sure it is coincidence that, upon the Palin column’s publication, a conservative organization canceled a speech I was scheduled to deliver in a few days. If I were as paranoid as the conspiracy theorists are, I might wonder whether I was being punished for speaking incorrectly.
Unfortunately, that’s the way one begins to think when party loyalty is given a higher value than loyalty to bedrock principles.
Our day of reckoning may indeed be upon us. Between war and economic collapse, we have enormous challenges. It will take the best of everyone to solve them. That process begins minimally with a commitment to engage in civil discourse and a cease-fire in the war against unwelcome ideas.
In that spirit, may Sarah Palin be fearless in tomorrow’s debate and speak her true mind
Source: Washington Post
Out Foxing Karl Rove 
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