Right wing columnist Kathleen Parker has been viciously attacked by over 11,000 right wing emailers for saying that she thought Sarah Palin wasn't qualified for the job. We're used to seeing the media attack the left wing bloggers by quoting anonymous comments left on our blogs which is supposed to be a fair substitute for our own writings. It's about time the right was exposed for this behavior as she appeared on CNN's Reliable Sources to discuss this incident.
KURTZ: Here is what you wrote this week: "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."
Now, this is all because some readers didn't like what you had to say about Sarah Palin.
PARKER: Some people were very upset. Approximately 11,000 so far, and counting.
Yes, I wrote about Sarah Palin stepping down from the ticket. I felt after her third interview -- I didn't think any of her interviews were very good, but the third was catastrophic -- that she ought to leave the ticket and let McCain try to put somebody else in place to do a better job and help him with maybe the economy.
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KURTZ: What about the reaction? All those e-mails, all the vitriol directed at you, I mean, that has got to be somewhat depressing. Are you expected because you are on the conservative side of the spectrum to defend any nominee the Republican Party throws out there?
PARKER: Apparently. Apparently so.
KURTZ: And for those who missed the column, you said -- this was after one of her encounters with Katie Couric -- "If Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing. And if B.S. were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself."
Their posters are as nasty and sleazy on the internet as anybody, but the media likes to create a false narrative about the left so they usually ignore it. However, Parker is one of their own and this time the Villagers didn't sweep it under the rug.
(transcripts below the fold via CNN)
KURTZ: What about the reaction? All those e-mails, all the vitriol directed at you, I mean, that has got to be somewhat depressing. Are you expected because you are on the conservative side of the spectrum to defend any nominee the Republican Party throws out there?
PARKER: Apparently. Apparently so.
I think the reaction to me specifically in this case was there are a number of factors, I think. One was that they very much do not want Obama to win, and so any opinion that seems to give ammunition to the other side is going to cause trouble.
I think another factor is that these people have so over-identified with Sarah Palin as one of us, you know, saying that we're all ordinary Americans, she's like us -- and boy she played that up in a big way in the debate Thursday. She really played her populist card. But I think that they felt insulted personally, so I think that accounts...
KURTZ: Were you not only wandering off the reservation as a conservative, but also as a woman who perhaps some saw as betraying or walking away from this woman, the first Republican woman on a Republican presidential ticket?
PARKER: Yes, I guess a little bit. It's sort of a funny thing for the right to be offended by objecting to the sisterhood, you know, by leaving the sisterhood. But I think most of the comments were more along the lines of -- that I was jealous, that clearly I couldn't stand for a pretty woman like Sarah Palin to be rising to the vice presidency, that probably I should be. And that actually hadn't entered my mind, but...
KURTZ: You have avoided taking this personally, but it's got to be a little frustrating to be beaten up like that for basically doing your job. You're paid to have opinions. You're paid to write a column.
PARKER: Well, of course I am. And I'm not paid by the GOP. I mean, I'm not employed by them. And I have to say what I believe.
I have to -- you know, there's an issue of credibility as well for me. So it was impossible for me to continue cheerleading for Sarah Palin given the evidence we had at the time.
KURTZ: I've got about half a minute. Did Sarah Palin's performance at the debate, which got fairly positive reviews from the mainstream media, cause you to revise your view at all about whether she should be the VP nominee?
PARKER: Sarah Palin I think redeemed herself. I don't think she helped McCain. And I think the question of whether she is qualified to be president has not been answered in a different way. How's that?
KURTZ: In a different way...
PARKER: I don't think anyone who watched her and who then listens to her answers would say, yes, this woman is ready to be president of the United States should circumstances warrant.
KURTZ: Kathleen Parker still speaking her mind.
