Threatened, Kathleen Parker has to answer emails about her column

[underpants]

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.

Those are a few nuggets randomly selected from thousands of e-mails written in response to my column suggesting that Sarah Palin is out of her league and should step down.

Everyone's to blame, by the way.

Such extreme partisanship has a crippling effect on government, which may be desirable at times, but not now. More important in the long term is the less tangible effect of stifling free speech. My mail paints an ugly picture and a bleak future if we do not soon correct ourselves.

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.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/30/AR2008093002315.html

Columnist Threatened Over Calls for Palin to Quit
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/parker_palin/2008/10/01/136384.html

A conservative columnist who suggested that Sarah Palin should resign the Republican ticket because of her poor media performance is receiving some of the worst threats of her journalism career.

Syndicated columnnist Kathleen Parker said the angry emails and letters she is receiving is of a “different order” altogether — “not just angry, but vicious and threatening.”

[hatrack]

1. Meet today's Republican Party, crybaby! Or hadn't you heard?

:rofl:

[redqueen]

7. TODAY'S?! They've been this way for decades now!

One wonders just how far up their own asses these pundits' heads must be.

[RedLetterRev]

17. As one DUer said

It's one thing to have one's head up one's ass. It's another to admire the view.

The RW punditry haven't just been admiring the view. They've savored the fragrance as well.

Chickens, meet roost.

[hobbit709]

2. Now maybe she understands what we've gone through for 8 years.

[Tesla]

3. I looked into McSame's eyes and saw KGB

[AndyA]

4. This just shows how truly sick some Republicans are.

They stand by their party no matter what. Party before country. Party before fellow man. Party before friend.

To have such blind allegance for a party above and beyond all else shows a serious mental disorder, in my opinion. In short, Republicans are crazy. And this is just more proof of that.

[SmokingJacket]

5. What do they say? Lie down with dogs, you get fleas.

What did she think her fellow Republicants would say?

[louis-t]

6. Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, Savage....

Any questions?

[TwilightGardener]

8. What? She's surprised that Republicans are vicious, nasty assholes that tolerate

no dissent?

[John Q. Citizen]

9. Where has Kathleen been?

[AndyTiedye]

10. Now You Know Why We Call the ReTHUGlickins Around Here

[kegler14]

11. Don't you all know that she's either lying,

wrote them herself, or they were written by liberals to make conservatives look bad? At l;east that's what conservatives are saying.

[bluestateguy]

12. Now she knows how we have felt all of these years

I got a borderline death threat from a Bush-loving conservative six years ago for writing a LTTE that dared to criticize God's Chosen President.

[Elidor]

13. No sympathy

Firedoglake pointed out her history yesterday:

Here's a note I got recently from a friend and former Delta Force member, who has been observing American politics from the trenches: "These bastards like Clark and Kerry and that incipient ass, Dean, and Gephardt and Kucinich and that absolute mental midget Sharpton, race baiter, should all be lined up and shot."

Suck it up, Kathleen. You've been tossing red meat to a caged rabid animal for two decades. No sympathy when it finally bites you.

Now, she whines:

...when we decide that a person is a traitor and should die for having an opinion different from one's own, we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk.

http://firedoglake.com/2008/10/01/kathleen-parker-shocked-to-find-her-party-is-full-of-vicious-threatening-delusional-wingnuts/

[underpants]

19. It had to happen at some time

I have read her column in my local rags for years and the most remarkable thing (aside from those personal attacks) is that she never actually makes a point. She dances around it and I knew what she meant but she never actually stated anything. First time and she gets bit on the ass.

Too stinking bad.

[Jim__]

14. Has she seen McCain's ads? Has she condemned them?

[Warpy]

15. It must come as a shock to her

because of years of columns in which she agreed with powerful prevailing orthodoxy and received high praise for her independence of thought, the day she exercised real independence of thought (having been emboldened by Noonan on an open mike) she was lambasted as having sold herself to Satan, taken leave of her senses and joined the Communist Party.

Well, welcome to our world, Parker.

These are your people and have been all along. This is your clue phone, the scent of morning coffee, the wakeup call. If you heed it, you might yet become a responsible journalist. If you scuttle back to the safety of orthodoxy, well, you'll remain a comfortable shill, collecting a paycheck while you consistently miss the point.

Somehow, I doubt that will really happen. You've seen what you're defending, and it will never be the same.

[underpants]

20. She must have some the dirty goods on someone

I have never been able to figure out why she is published-other than just being another voice in the chorus.


As I posted above

I have read her column in my local rag for years and the most remarkable thing (aside from personal attacks) is that she never actually makes a point. She dances around it and I knew what she meant but she never actually stated anything. First time and she gets bit on the ass. Woooohooo :cry:

[CC]

16. She is as bad and any of them.

So she should suck it up and take a dose of her own medicine and quit whining. I am tired of these hate mongers whining whenever their audience doesn't agree with them and treats them the way they treat everyone else that doesn't agree with them.

[northernlights]

18. so email Kathleen

here's what I've just sent her:

To: [e-mail]
Subject: Thank you for your honesty


And welcome to my world.


Dear Ms. Parker,
I am a lifelong independent moderate turned in recent years to rabid democrat. Not due to being lured into the democratic party by empty promises, pandering, or the supposed promise of "entitlements." But due totally to the viscious, hateful behavior by those to whom I refer as radical, rightwing, kristian konservative nutcases.

After years of ignoring unprovoked, unexpected and unwarranted harrassment by Hillary-haters (I was an independent, I posted no signs, wore no party tee-shirts), two years ago the hatred projected at me elevated to violence. I was deliberately and knowingly poisoned, harrassed in my home, and had my animals assaulted (fortunately not injured) by my radical, rightwing, kristian konservative lunatic employers. All in return not appreciating the gifts bestowed on us by the current administration and for being a "babykilling liberal" as I was repeatedly called by coworkers while attempting to do my job. (I assure you that not once have I ever killed a baby, nor even a zygote.)

Since you brought up Nancy Pelosi's partisan speech in your response to the hate mail you are now receiving, I would like to remind you that while Senator Boehner blamed failure of the bill to pass on certain republicans hurt feelings, Senator John McCain wasted no time blaming the nonpassage of the initial bailout bill on Senator Barack Obama, just one sentence prior to declaring that now is not the time for fingerpointing or blame. Not to mention his own grandstanding and shenanigans that were aimed at derailing the bill.

Is that what you would call putting the country first...or self?

And to promote the democratic party just a little, when have you ever read of a murder or bombing perpetrated by democrats against your doctor, your republican neighbor, a gun store? Never, right?

We Americans live in very perilous times. We are at war, but the war I have learned to fear the most is not the war on terrorism, but the terrorist war perpetrated on me by my next door rightwing neighbors. I have also learned to think of your party as rethuglicans...with good reason. I am glad you've finally learned the truth about your party, and am very happy that you have had the blessing to learn it through mere threats, as opposed to the actual violence that many of us have been subjected to for some years now.


Sincerely,
me

[underpants]

21. Nice letter

Geesh you have the right to be a lot more pissed off than you are.

Poisoned? I don't need to know the details but for crying out loud that is beyond words.