Kathleen Parker: To Appalachia With...Respect (she's advising Obama on how to sway `rednecks')

Townhall ^ | October 10, 2008 | Kathleen Parker

[FredZarguna]

If you're saying her Floking articles are hideous, I agree. If you're saying the turgid "columns" of this putative conservative compare to THE Misanthrope's you're way off. Florence King can write. Kathleen Parker's writing, whatever the subject, is just putrid.

[Old Professer]

Perhaps dyslexic rather than disjointed might have been a better term.

I find Parker most interesting when she sticks to the small issues; only read her when the local rag sticks her in.

King was a true artist of the ascerbic genre; left her foes bleeding from every pore, sticky little left when she was done.

[Grammy]

Unfortunately, here in middle TN the liberals are alive and well. I have a really good friend, a good Christian woman, who is voting for O. Her daughter and I have been issuing a “daily beating” and she just plain doesn’t care! She has chosen to believe the lies he spews, and refuses to believe the bad stuff, and just the opposite with McCain Palin. She *hates* Palin.

Another friend was at the debate, and even though she is also a Christian and pro-life, she is still seriously leaning Obama. I am just so frustrated at the willful stupidity I am seeing!!!! It is like they took a stupid pill! Facts don’t matter a whit! The candidates own words or voting records don’t matter.

With the first friend I said that Obama had introduced a bill that would have taxed her bracket, not the $250 thousand he is now saying. She said that would matter to her, since it would affect her. But the truth is she doesn’t really care. She won’t read anything I send her that talks about it. I said “how about if I send you the bill with his name on it?” She won’t read it. Facts don’t matter any more, it is all emotion.

So, I give up. Maybe all those unsophisticated hicks (my kinfolk) will save our bacon this year.

[Tax-chick]

I have to agree. Florence King is out of her mind, but she is a brilliant writer. I almost need CPR while her reading her imitation of Ayn Rand.

Kathleen Parker can write coherent sentences with subjects and verbs and all that. So can my 12-year-old. His are about reptiles while hers are about Obama ... and about how women “need” abortion on demand.

[FredZarguna]

I was glad to see Florence make a comeback with the "Bent Pin" column, although it isn't quite as spirited as the old "Misanthrope's Corner;" like Sherlock Holmes coming out of retirement: "The old boy was never quite the same."

Her column on the Ignos -- those bizarre entities who share our space and overlap (some of) our times, but apparently none of our culture -- was one of the best commentaries on modern human nature ever. Her description of telling an Igno that she saw "the handwriting on the wall" prompting the poor clueless little thing to literally look at the wall was a true howler, and unfortunately so typical of several of my own experiences with twentysomethings.

I find Parker's writing tedious, myself. She's mastered a style (or a style sheet) favored by Northeastern columnists that's so cookie-cutter it's not even interesting when she actually has something interesting to say. That's gotten rarer and rarer in the current cycle.

[Tax-chick]

Her column on the Ignos

Do you have a link? I'd love to read it. I don't get "National Review" anymore. Too liberal :-).

[FredZarguna]

This is an active server page: you may need to log-in as a subscriber to read it. If you can't get to it, FReepmail me and I'll get it to you on the sly. http://www.nationalreview.com/king/king200404161008.asp

[Tax-chick]

Thanks, that was great! This line reminded me of Michelle Obama and her "thesis": Uneducated people with college degrees are even more touchy, and their numbers are steadily increasing.