Kathleen Parker, Smearest of Them All

A Soft Focused Smear Tactician from the Right

Kathleen Parker has an opinion piece over at the Washington Post that hits Obama hard on his abortion stance. As normally is the case, I have to do a Google search to find out that Kathleen Parker is a right-wing smear tactician disguised beneath the title “Syndicated Columnist”. Take the google search farther, and you get yourself a nice, soft-focused head-shot of the Rove diva herself. (I’ve reprinted it with a bit more soft focus since I didn’t have permission from the Washington Post.)

My contention with Kathleen Parker and the Washington Post is how she’s presented. The Washington Post has typically been a paper that is balanced, if not a bit more liberal. Why is this slime’s words being reprinted as a “balanced” opinion? I have no idea.

Fair and Balanced Assessment?

Of her supposed fair assessment of Barack’s abortion stance:

It is probably fair to say that Obama does not favor infanticide, though his position on the Illinois bill was extreme even by pro-choice standards. But Obama’s current problem isn’t really about his position on abortion. It is about his central weakness as a presidential candidate: He over thinks and ends up seeming not to know what he thinks.

She takes a nuanced stance on abortion, a difficult issue to reconcile by anyone except by the far-right, and applies it to Obama’s candidacy as a whole. She confuses “over thinking” with balance, “not-knowing” with empathy and listening, as if a President has to be rigid and settle on their own rightness, without considering other perspectives.

George W Bush Fascination Explained

This explains why Republicans elected George W Bush twice despite a failed war. It also explains why a candidate such as John McCain has remade himself into a persona he doesn’t even recognize. No wonder he’s acting like he’s lost.

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 25 2008: I feel like I should correct my statement a little bit against Kathleen Parker. I’m a fair person, and I normally don’t agree with Conservative commentators very often, but Kathleen wrote today, suggestion Palin should resign. I agree with this. Mark one up for Kathleen Parker.

UPDATE OCTOBER 14 2008: So now I feel like this entire post has been repudiated and I have a new respect for Kathleen Parker. So this post has been struck.