Dear readers, I’ve been trying so hard not to write any more Kathleen Parker is a Shithead tinged articles. It appears it has all been in vain. One of these days, I will collect all the Kathleen Parker articles I’ve not been publishing and throw them up here. It will be horrible, and I hope that you will forgive me when that day comes.

But I can’t help it, out of all the editorials I’m exposed to on a daily basis, I see her the most. I’m compelled to read them simply out of an insane hope that she will eventually pick a side rhetorically and stay there or actually start writing good articles. That she will one of these days buck the status quo and actually write foreword thinking pieces. That she will become more like George Will in that matter: they don’t have to be correct, cogent or topical articles, but at least they’re something different than the seemingly endless, lazy, talking point memo induced columns that choke up our newspapers.

In my opinion the most egregious writing style, and the apex of most Ms. Parker’s columns, is the cowards way of backing up a weak article with “facts”. These facts are typically in the shape of polls, which by now, everyone is keenly aware are mostly contextual of the exact moment in time the question was asked, and when we’re talking political leanings are NEVER proof positive of any trend or held belief. Yet, to the right-wing writers who use them, they are the manna from heaven with which they bake all their lie bread.

In Ms. Parker’s case she always front loads her articles with them because 90% of the time her thesis’ are so weak they need to be braced by polls or weak rhetoric. Even a razor thin toothpick of a poll result is good enough. Problem is, as is the case most of the time with any article held up by polls, by the end of the article the writer will always start sliding in their rhetoric and “polls” that back up their point. But there’s no names or percentages like the polls referenced at the beginning of the piece. It’s a shell game, and only those of us who are most diligent even realize this nasty trick.

Perhaps it’s a tad ironic that Ms. Parker’s recent column about how these presidential campaigns are essentially high school popularity contests, is so full of immature snark and bite. Oh, it’s all aimed at Obama. Since she’s finally done with writing the “Seriously guys, Romney” Romney harlequin short fictions about the presumptive republican presidential nominee, she’s gone after Obama with a ham-handed ferocity. Not one to wander too far off the status quo reservation, she continues to run with the idea that Obama isn’t nearly as popular with the ladies as he’d want you to believe.

The first thought is, who the fuck cares anymore? I mean really…the GOP and right-wing have burned more than enough ladies with their anti-woman policies. In fact, when Rick Santorum was having his moment a few months back, Obama was looking REAL good to pretty much everyone, ladies included. The second thought is one that I’ve stated before, there’s more than enough evidence to show that the right-wing and GOP on every level of government is attempting to subvert the constitutional rights of women. This is no longer a battle of rhetoric, as it was at points in the past. The GOP is acting on a lot of it’s regressive agenda before it overreaches too far yet again, and get’s the boot.

The key thing I realized, and what propelled me to publish this piece is the shitty way Ms. Parker slides in her bullshit. (The emphasis is mine)“…[a] poll showed women tilting toward Mitt and voters overall favoring him by 46%.” She follows it up with another poll showing it was higher a month ago, so it’s doubly insulting. It’s using that right-wing regressive idea that women are irrational about their politics AND that readers of this articles won’t happen to notice that “voters overall” and women are being poorly lumped together. The poll didn’t read women are favoring Romney by 46%, it says voters OVERALL. Ms. Parker is abstracting the women part, because she desperately needs to make her point.

I’m also surprised at amount of surprise that the right-wing writers have about Romney’s past transgressions seemingly always popping up to bite his campaign in the ass. The GOP establishment aren’t surprised by this at all. This is where you can see the clear differentiation between the establishment writers and the status quo followers. I wouldn’t even be surprised if right up to the election that people like Ms. Parker will keep being astonished by Romney’s flip-flop-ness, Crategate, and so on. Whereas the establishment long ago accepted that Romney was a weak candidate and that the focus should return to filling the congress with republicans.

About the middle of the article Ms. Parker whips out the rhetoric with a “poll” that showed that four in ten voters think Obama’s policies will tank their financial situation if he’s re-elected. Where’s the source, Ms. Parker? You had zero problem laying out where the first few polls came from, yet here, it’s just slid out there for the reader to absorb. Towards the end of the piece another gem about the recent announcement Obama supported gay marriage: “…but polls show that the broader voting audience isn’t strongly swayed one way or the other…” She opens with two thirds of voters think the announcement was politically motivated, while 57% (arguably could also be closer to two-thirds) say it would have no affect on their vote. So her point is moot. As it should be, as again, we need to focus on the real issues that are facing this nation.

Oddly, she puts this sentence in to the piece after saying that Romney running Bain Capital that “sometimes” profited from failed businesses that resulted in job losses is capitalism: “For likeability, see auto bailout.” It’s unclear whether Ms. Parker is playing in to the recent Romney led history re-write where he says the auto bailout was his idea that Obama used, when in fact, and there’s a New York Times editorial to back this up, he suggested that the auto industry go bankrupt. Which sure, is indeed capitalism at it’s finest, but shows (along with "Crategate", or his “prank” on a long-haired classmate) that Romney is heartless and incapable of compassion in the face of oblivion. That he lacks the pragmatism to solve problems without doing great harm to those that may not matter to him. He’s a cutthroat businessman through and through and that’s not going to tilt the likeability meter to him ever.

But this idea that Obama isn’t going to embrace his record and attempt to bamboozle the voters with charisma is absurd. The Romney campaign is going to flagellate the shit out of the talking point that Obama’s record is poor. The “likeability” and reliability issue that needs to be addressed is purely a Romney problem.