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The Buckley Son Rises: Kathleen Parker doubles down
National Review ^ | October 17, 2008 | Kathleen Parker

Posted on 10/17/2008 9:34:11 AM PDT by St. Louis Conservative

The truth few wish to utter is that the GOP has abandoned many conservatives, who mostly nurse their angst in private. Those chickens we keep hearing about have indeed come home to roost. Years of pandering to the extreme wing — the “kooks” the senior Buckley tried to separate from the right — have created a party no longer attentive to its principles.

Instead, as Christopher Buckley pointed out in a blog post on thedailybeast.com explaining his departure from National Review, eight years of “conservatism” have brought us “a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance.”

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.

(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; christopherbuckley; gopcoup; kathleenparker; mccainpalin; obama; palin; rinorevolution; truecolors; wfb
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To: macamadamia

Unfair to blame it on NR. This is a syndicated column, Parker doesn’t write for NR.


21 posted on 10/17/2008 9:55:02 AM PDT by St. Louis Conservative
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To: puroresu
Oh, thank you so much.

Is there anything more disgusting than the sight of these spineless poltroons pushing everyone else out of the way on their way to the exits of a room they think is on fire? Yes indeed there is, when the arsonists are the people doing the shoving. Conservatism is going to be just fine -- even better -- after all the Kathleen Parker types have bailed. She can join Christo, David Brooks, and blast from the past Gary Wills in the obscurity she so richly deserves.

Nice post.

22 posted on 10/17/2008 9:58:00 AM PDT by FredZarguna (Don't tase me, Pa!)
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To: exist

I’m sure people are lighting up her phone lines begging her to appear on the various Sunday talk shows so they can bring her on as the “conservative” opinion. There will be no shortage of the word “conservative” when describing Parker. Then they’ll say, “see! see! even ‘conservatives’ don’t like Sarah Palin!!”


23 posted on 10/17/2008 10:02:16 AM PDT by St. Louis Conservative
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To: puroresu

Your reply hits the nail on the head. When I read her babble, I saw a girl trying to justify her transgression, and resorting to the liberal technique of flat out lying - by blaming the poop in her own nest, on the people who warned her she wouldn’t like the smell. It is a mix of denial and projection, and a very fundamental liberal defense mechanism. Of course defense mechanisms used to be the way we overcame our weaknesses to remain in respectable society. Liberalism has turned this on its head and made quality defects a notion of pride and something to trumpet to the group - wave that freak flag, as it goes.
Unfortunately, since liberalism is the dominant culture in our civilization, she will receive ample superficial rewards for jumping onto the freak bus. As a conservative knows, often her type of deal is one with the devil and she cannot serve two masters.
It is sad, and too commonplace today, to see promising servants become disciples of this world, rather than eternity.


24 posted on 10/17/2008 10:04:03 AM PDT by Harrius Magnus (LIBERALS: We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.)
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Come on Kathleen, he said that he is VOTING FOR OBAMA.

No moral man would do that.


25 posted on 10/17/2008 10:06:48 AM PDT by donna (Women are not little men, and men are not big women.)
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To: St. Louis Conservative
Unfair to blame it on NR. This is a syndicated column, Parker doesn’t write for NR.

Well, yes. But also, no.

As a loyal NR reader of several decades who still finds the magazine basically sound I agree this isn't the editorial position of the magazine. On the other hand, NR has been giving this putative conservative exposure by reprinting her columns on the web. Frankly, they need to stop. They should have stopped when the second pro 0bama missive appeared. They didn't. They didn't stop reprinting when the third pro 0bama column appeared, nor after two columns attacking Palin on personal, rather than substantive points. Now this atrocity. Time to pull the plug.

26 posted on 10/17/2008 10:07:30 AM PDT by FredZarguna (Don't tase me, Pa!)
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To: St. Louis Conservative
Sarah is the course correction.

Kathleen Parker and Peggy Noonan are spiteful sellouts.


27 posted on 10/17/2008 10:10:59 AM PDT by TheFourthMagi
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To: St. Louis Conservative
“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!’” If Christopher Buckley wants to make a point about how the Republican Party is betraying its ideals, why isn't CB voting Libertarian? As for KP’s assertion that WFB is, from Heaven, cheering CB’s decision, that's nuts. Voting for Obama, as opposed to Bob Barr, because you think McCain isn't conservative enough is illogical, and WFB was not illogical.
28 posted on 10/17/2008 10:13:53 AM PDT by utahagen
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To: St. Louis Conservative
It's time to pull the plug on Kathleen Parker. Liberals given column space on conservative 'blogs aren't pioneering conservatives, they're just disruptors.

Lincoln once famously asked, "If we call a horses' tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have?" A perplexed Secretary replied, "Five?" "No," Lincoln replied, "Just four. Saying a horse's leg is a tail doesn't make it one."

Kathleen Parker is not a conservative. Saying she is a conservative doesn't make her one; she's just another horse's tail.

29 posted on 10/17/2008 10:14:09 AM PDT by FredZarguna (Don't tase me, Pa!)
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To: mojito

Kathleen’s “Bless his heart” moment; neo-neoconservatism accepts all premises.


30 posted on 10/17/2008 10:16:10 AM PDT by Old Professer (The critic writes with rapier pen, dips it twice, and writes again.)
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To: St. Louis Conservative

who the sam hill was this harridan before this elction?

a wart with a laptop.

a comely wart to be fair..alas


31 posted on 10/17/2008 10:17:50 AM PDT by wardaddy (Sarah Palin is descended from Bodicea)
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Ok, I read the first sentence. Please put me in the KOOK column with Sarah,Rush,Ann Coulter,and the rest.


32 posted on 10/17/2008 10:18:18 AM PDT by libbylu
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Endorsing Barack Obama is a very strange way to advance conservatism. I have to wonder what is really going on in the minds of people like Buckley and Parker.


33 posted on 10/17/2008 10:29:46 AM PDT by popdonnelly (Does Obama know anyone who likes America, capitalism, or white people?)
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To: St. Louis Conservative

She is what I might call a distaff conservative; daddy’s girl, mommy-pleaser, self-educated conscience-awareness-raiser.

She mostly writes controversial columns with a conservative theme as though she were describing the terrain.

She fills a void that embarrassed editors felt Martha Stewart was too housewifey for.

A deep thinker, she ain’t - a wordsmith with a cold flame and a clunky hammer willing to hold the same horseshoe for days..


34 posted on 10/17/2008 10:30:29 AM PDT by Old Professer (The critic writes with rapier pen, dips it twice, and writes again.)
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Buckley: “My colleague, the superb and very dishy Kathleen Parker”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-10/the-conservative-case-for-obama

Parker: “Christopher Buckley, ever the swashbuckling heir to his father’s defiant spirit”

EGADS!!! Get a room already!


35 posted on 10/17/2008 10:37:35 AM PDT by Heart of Georgia (McCain/Palin 08)
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To: Heart of Georgia

Don’t give him any ideas. He’s already got one love child.


36 posted on 10/17/2008 10:48:00 AM PDT by Cecily
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Are Kathleen and Peggy Noonan close friends?


37 posted on 10/17/2008 10:52:29 AM PDT by Born Conservative (Visit my blog: Chronic Positivity - http://chronicpositivity.com)
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Parker is utterly confused.

Since this controversy has much to do with Palin ( “The well-fed Right now cultivates ignorance as a political strategy....” ) it should be pointed out that Palin is the type of conservative that she describes WFB as admiring. The radical. The outsider. The one who has the mettle and the record to go after the “well-fed Right”.

Parker, C. Buckley, Noonan, and Brooks seem to cast themselves as the well-fed right, when, although they accurately criticize the failings of the conservative movement of recent years, they fail to recognize Palin’s obvious antipathy and non-membership in those aberrations.

So, one can only conclude that it is Palin’s colloquialism, her style, her what?....her ineloquence that turns them off. Her inability to cite supreme court cases she disagrees with, when she’s actually been spending her time accomplishing things and reforming government for her constituents who overwhelmingly approve of her efforts?....and not studying arcane historical minutiae to impress the intelligentsia and the media gotchya gamers?

I think WFB would recognize the true conservativism in Palin, the radicalism and activism that she represents and inspires, and his congenial and kind nature would have embraced her despite the regional, educational, and intellectual differences. Perhaps, he would have strove to befriend her and influence her, rather than jump ship. WFB would have never endorsed Obama. Never. Give me a break.


38 posted on 10/17/2008 11:04:10 AM PDT by Abe XVI
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To: St. Louis Conservative

We are gradually seeing a political realignment along the lines of elitists vs. populists.


39 posted on 10/17/2008 11:05:30 AM PDT by B Knotts (Calvin Coolidge Republican)
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To: PGR88
exactly what extremist positions are the Republicans now espousing? What conservative values have been abandoned?

did you forget your /SARCASM tag, FRiend?
In no particular order, here's three examples off of the top of my head:


40 posted on 10/17/2008 11:09:51 AM PDT by Ignatz (Why not enjoy the occasional swede?)
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