Kathleen Parker
Kathleen Parker
Kathleen Parker is a politically conservative-leaning columnist for The Washington Post. Her columns are syndicated nationally and appear in more than 400 media outlets, both online and in print. Parker is a consulting faculty member at the Buckley School of Public Speaking, a popular guest on cable and network news shows and a regular panelist on NBC's "Meet the Press" and MSNBC's "Hardball" with Chris Matthews. Parker describes herself politically as "mostly right of center" and was the highest-scoring conservative...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
CountryUnited States of America
It's probably fair to say that Obama's ideas were too big for America's appetite. It would have been nice had he made a few incremental repairs to the economy and left the transformative events for a less stressful time.
Of course, certain religious expressions are fine. If a tribe of Aqualishes wants to boil rhino horns in frog saliva on the National Mall to honor their deity, we'd have a commemorative postage stamp ready by next December. But let a Christian mention the baby Jesus to a kindergarten class and the ACLU wants an exorcism...
It is entirely possible that Limbaugh himself never needed contraception in college, but virtue in the absence of opportunity is hardly a moral triumph.
To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.
But principles defended at the expense of pragmatic application is the business of priests.
Capitalism, the ogre of those protesting Wall Street, has suffered a public relations crisis in the wake of the global economic collapse. But any remedy to the systemic corruption that led to the collapse should not displace recognition that capitalism creates wealth. Capitalism, and no other economic system, has raised millions from poverty around the world.
If you don't like tomato soup, you don't buy tomato soup.
Great nations don't have to remind others of their greatness. They merely have to be great.
Pending catastrophe is not an easy notion to entertain, much less sustain. Americans, moreover, have a low tolerance for doom and gloom. We are the nation of optimism, after all. We elect leaders who promise hope and change. We are the shining city on a hill. But what happens when the lights go out?
People in positions of power and privilege have a duty to perform at a higher level. If not them, then who?
I've never been a fan of presidents who place blame on their predecessors or who accept credit for events that couldn't have been engineered so soon in their tenure.