I’m proud to admit the first female in to the shithead Hall of Fame: Kathleen Parker. I needed the national FERVOR over her leaving of the CNN show Parker-Spitzer to calm before I emblazoned her inside it’s vaunted halls of mediocrity. Maybe you are wondering what one like Ms. Parker would have to do to even be considered for the hall of fame considering her bona fides: Pulitzer prize winning writing, national syndication in hundreds of papers, blah blah blah. Namely, the Hall of Fame board recognizes her for the most American of American traits: Mediocrity failing upwards.
Yes, I’ve always had a bone to pick with Kathleen Parker, and it’s mostly to do with her limp-wristed political writing and frothy feminism. She correctly acknowledged she won her Pulitzer prize for Palin bashing (which she then took back in some many words/columns in the weeks to follow her initial bashing on Palin, but once again there’s no Pulitzer for rhetorical consistency}. I was also just as surprised that she was tapped to co-host a show on CNN (which isn’t surprising of them) with Eliott Spitzer. Who we all know is very intelligent, but sense he was mired with scandal makes his intellectual fortitude about on par with whatever Ms. Parker would bring to the table, right? And wouldn’t you know it, they’re politically dissimilar, perfect CNN!
But this article isn’t about CNN’s resume for the Shithead Hall of Fame. I’m sure you’ll be voted in one day CNN, a girl can hope!
Parker-Spitzer, while not a ratings juggernaut, did have one piece of silver lining: it exposed Ms. Parker’s incompetence as a co-host. The great thing about actually thoughtful, intelligent people is that they are adaptable. Hence, when Spitzer was doing solo shows the ratings doubled, he could hold his own with any, and hell, the guy is on point for the most part. Parker is a pundit that needs a leash. This is why you don’t see Sarah Palin outside of Fox News. If given the run of the table they are unfocused and since they don’t have any real opinions (cherish the thought), can’t deliver in anything but lead on sound bites. These sound bites are just merely crumbs from the interviewers’/host’s table and are never the prevailing thought of the pundit. The host will be like “I hate gnarled, hairy toes,” then people like Palin or Parker just chime in with the “Yes, those are bad!” to give the essence of group think to the argument. She was timid in her co-hosting duties, and rarely, if ever disagreed with anything Spitzer argued. She’s the one from the right wing, huh? To be fair, she does say she’s “a little to the right of center” which means she’s flip floppy at best, and indecisive at worst. These are great qualities to bring to a crossfire debate type show.
Ms. Parker also likes to come from that right wing thought that if you’re published in a paper that that somehow makes you a journalist, which then gives you some form of integrity. This is the exception and not the rule; as I’m sure many viewers of the Parker-Spitzer show soon realized. She writes about culture and politics: two things that are never etched in stone, therefore you can write about them as the wind blows. Again, consistency isn’t one of her strong suits so what better topics to base your writing career on? It’s how Pat Buchanan can say on MSNBC that rich fat cats and corporations are destroying the middle class, then write an editorial admonishing public unions for collective bargaining and teacher for striking on the future generations and setting a bad example.
I guess all the blame can’t really be put on Ms. Parker for her disastrous Parker-Spitzer run. CNN has a weird hyperbole fetish and an intense desire to seem “fresh” and “With it”. Like all those Piers Morgan Tonight spots where he says he’s going to tell it like it is and ask the hard questions. Then you watch his show (when he actually has a guest) and it’s a just a British dude engaging in polite conversation. So when you try to frame your debate show with the “He’s a Liberal New York lawyer and she’s a Conservative D.C. writer…sparks are gonna fly, you better bring your welding visor America”, you can’t be to surprised that the so saying “slightly right of center” isn’t going to exactly clash with a common sense, or even informed argument.
But Mr. Mayor, you maybe asking, didn’t you say she’s guilty of failing upwards, what do you mean? Here is what I mean America: people like her are needed to fill the void in newspaper editorials, or fodder for the sound bite 24 hour news cycle. She’s paid to have an opinion on EVERYTHING, it’s a great way to take up column space. She’s also that much needed right wing skirt that makes it seem like Republicans don’t hate women and want them to stay in the kitchen, making babies. Sometimes, her poignancy can surprise you, for example the Palin bashing. But when asked to foment an argument, they deflate so fast and so quick, that you have no choice but to call them out. They can’t embarrass you on national television like that ever, or for very long. That’s why she only lasted 4 ½ months on the Parker-Spitzer program. She couldn’t adapt so she sunk, and then had to “focus on her writing”. Really Ms. Parker? Was there something so burning inside you about the state of something no one really cares about in the national discourse that you couldn’t say in on your nightly program?
People like Ms. Parker shape the public discourse. They can be great providers of information if they so wish, but yet again without any rhetorical consistency you gain nothing as a public. If we wanted wishy-washy, hypocritical commentary we can just look to our congress for that buffoonishness. Hell, we have an entire “News Channel” dedicated to feeding a hive mind falsities. I don’t think it’s too much to ask of our punditry and talking heads to actually come to the table with facts, or at the very least, accountability for their actions. Ms. Parker’s career has been one of fluff and little substance, so we can’t really be surprised to find her lacking substance on anything of depth.
Perhaps, going back to the Parker-Spitzer debacle, CNN promised Ms. Parker that the show would be a pool of marshmallow’s and she wouldn’t have to do much but look pretty, disagree from time to time, and not have to do any heavy lifting; much like her column writing duties. They didn’t even screen test her or Spitzer to see if the two could in fact work as structured. I think the screen test alone could’ve given sufficient answer to that. She left the show, supposedly, because they failed to deliver on the promise to move the show to more cultural/entertainment venue’s, her bread and butter. This is where I can fault Ms. Parker for her lack of adaptability and the core reason she’s in the Shithead Hall of Fame today.
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