Oh, My!

You may remember Kathleen Parker, the syndicated conservative columnist for the Washington Post. It has been kind of fun to watch her wake up to the realities around her.

In September she wrote:

I've been pulling for Ms. Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

And after the election she wrote:

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia*, one would hear precisely that.

The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it.

[snip]

... the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.

My gosh, if you take away the Bimbo, and you take away armband religion, what do you have left in the Republican Party?

Today, Ms. Parker goes after that:

What the GOP is experiencing now, one hopes, are the death throes of that 50-year spell that [Lyndon] Johnson foretold [i.e., that the Civil Rights Act would drive the South into the Republican Party for half a century]. But before the party of the Great Emancipator can rise again, Republicans will have to face their inner Voinovich and drive a stake through the heart of old Dixie.

The column had 1600 comments by 7 a.m.

* By whom she apparently means herself and David Brooks, because for the life of me I can't think of third!