But speaking of dopes, her column in the Washington Post this morning is a tribute to the power of word-processing and caffeine to spit out a column, even if it makes no sense, and even if the facts are not accurate. So long as it takes a swing at Fox, including FNC's Glenn Beck, her WP editors will lovingly put it on prime real-estate, right there on the WP op-ed page, hard copy.
In this stream of hastily typed consciousness, Parker strings together three quotes, from three different people--one of whom isn't real--and calls that a column. The three quotes are, "Can we all get along?" from that great social commentator Rodney King, " next, "Give peace a chance" from John Lennon, and finally, "What we've got here is a failure to communicate," from the 1967 movie "Cool Hand Luke," in which she attributes those words to Paul Newman. In fact, as anyone who has actually seen the movie--and it's been on TV about 10 million times--knows, the quote comes from the character actor Strother Martin, who plays "The Captain," and is Cool Hand Luke/Newman's nemesis in the film. So putting Martin's words--he actually said in Southern dialect, "What we got here . . . is failure to communicate"--in Newman's mouth is like saying that a criminal, and not Clint Eastwood, said "Make my day" in "Dirty Harry."
But of course, neither Parker nor the WP--nor her liberal readers, as distinct from conservative readers, of whom there are none--care about accuracy or anything so bourgeoise. After making a howler of a mistake (don't hold your breath for a correction) in the third paragraph, Parker goes on to bash FNC's Beck, for having the temerity to launch his "Restoring Honor" rally on the National Mall in Washington DC, coming this Saturday, August 28. Parker cites Al Sharpton (!) as opposing Beck's moment on the Mall. That's her authority? Sharpton?? One of the most odious characters in the country??? Only a liberal wouldn't laugh at the thought that Sharpton speaks for anything more than himself--and hair goop. But regardless, Parker cites him as believing that Beck is "poking a finger in the eye of the civil rights movement."
Looming over all this, of course, is the reality that Parker is soon beginning a show on CNN with Eliot Spitzer, aka Mr. Clean. So when is Parker going to start acknowledging that every time she takes a swing at Fox, or Fox talent, she is doing the bidding of not only her liberal base in general, but CNN in particular? Answer: Never. At least not unless she has to. But where will that pressure come from? Because, after all, so few conservatives or even centrists read what's left of the WaPo.
