By now many of you have seen Kathleen Parker's column about the hate mail she received from Palin supporters in response to her urging Palin to withdraw from her candidacy. Do you recall her diary about "full-bloodedness" in May?
As noted by other diarists recently, Ms. Parker seems to be disturbed by the hate mail she has received from her usual right wing fan club. With the usual lack of instrospection we find from the right wing ideologues, she fails to consider her own contribution to the divisions in this country.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
From this week's column:
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...
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...
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 than one's own, then we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk. (I hear you, Dixie Chicks.)
But in her May 14, 2008 column, Ms. Parker championed the concerns of those very same rabid partisans who contributed to the deterioration of public discourse that she now so regretfully describes. Remember her column about "full-bloodedness"? Although I hate to give that column an additional opportunity to be viewed, the hypocrisy of Ms. Parker demands another look:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
Full-bloodedness is an old coin that's gaining currency in the new American realm. Meaning: Politics may no longer be so much about race and gender as about heritage, core values, and made-in-America. Just as we once and still have a cultural divide in this country, we now have a patriot divide...
...white Americans primarily—and Southerners, rural and small-town folks especially—have been put on the defensive for their concerns with "guns, God and gays," as Howard Dean put it in 2003. And more recently, for clinging to "guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them," as Obama described white, working-class Pennsylvanians who preferred his opponent...
Some Americans do feel antipathy toward "people who aren't like them," but that antipathy isn't about racial or ethnic differences. It is not necessary to repair antipathy appropriately directed toward people who disregard the laws of the land and who dismiss the struggles that resulted in their creation...
Full-blooded Americans get this. Those who hope to lead the nation better get it soon.
I guess Ms. Parker's "full-blooded" American qualifications don't give her a pass when she is challenging another "full-blooded" American.