Summer Soldiers’ Home: Kparker.com, Proprietor

by Steve Finefrock – [scriptwriter]

Posted: October 2, 2008

Eisenhower noted in a very private entry of a personal journal during his command at SHAEF [Supreme Headquarters – Allied Expeditionary Force] in the runup to invading Normandy, “Is there no end to the stupidity?” It wasn’t the sole occasion for such sentiment, either in the political hallways of military command or the political hallways of the nation’s capitol. He was particularly frustrated at GOPsters’ failure to grasp his attempts at subtle clues on legislation: he didn’t wish to be bossy, but had ideas for the House and Senate leaders – the first time the GOP had both chambers in some time. Their dunderheaded craniums often failed to ‘get’ his inferred intent – too many years without practical practicing of the political craft left them obtuse to the third logarithm.

Today is The Debate, as our Pal in Power brings an Eve of Destruction to Joe Biden – I state that affirmative expectation, knowing this will post after the debate, to suggest how a serious political professional deals with the issues which seem to escape such marginal players as George Will, David Frum, David Brooks and especially Kathleen Parker of kparker.com. Her retort this day in WaPo [Washington Post, not a journal of record known for favoring conservative advocacy] requires reply, in public, to maybe convey a lesson or two. Kparker.com has triggered my own ‘cringe reflex’ at her Palinophobic outburst.

In bashing Palin, kparker.com opened the floodgates of MSNBC & Co., their band of usual suspects gleefully citing her caustic commentary as eagerly as they did George Will for his earlier characterization of Mac as unfit to command. Here’s a First Rule, kparker.com: When hard-left bloggers and hard-left cable networks erotically cite you as a credible and admirable intellectual source, you’re not promoting the cause you believe you are fully believing.

Another First Rule: Political professionals are concerned about WINNING. A classic example of a pro v. amateur is the leader of a visible political activist group considering endorsement of a candidate: the amateur eagerly tells the candidate, You got my support, it’s going to help you win, I’m telling everybody that with ya man, all the way. The professional says calmly, I can be for you, or I can be against you – whichever will do you the most good! Most endorsements are the expression of the individual, narcissistic ego of the endorser, not concern for the ultimate effect on the endorsee. The pro knows an explicit endorsement may get the wrong result, so offers to be neutral, or even to oppose the very candidate he wishes to be elected into the catbird seat of power.

Ditto for columnists. As in greater crises, where the hottest fires in hell are said to be reserved for those who in times of great moral crises, fight fervently to preserve their neutrality, so in more pedestrian political battles there are hosts of George Wills and David Brooks and David Gergens and Kathleen Parkers who insist they be pure and blunt and outspoken – even if it puts a weapon of political destruction into the hands of the very people they claim, oh they so fervently claim, to oppose and find fearful at their gaining power.

They are summer soldiers, and sunshine patriots to the cause they support [note lower case] in pursuit of the greater Cause of the nation [the upper case meaning the nation, our peoples, our national heritage]. The Summer Soldiers’ Home is filled to the brim with them – and kparker.com commentary in WaPo proves she was more interested in preserving her neutrality than in preserving this nation’s future from the socialist hands wrapped firmly upon the tiller of power in the Oval Office. She’d prefer the Oval Teen gain that office than an adult be put in charge, with his VP at his side, since Palin suddenly was not all she might have seemed to kparker.com in earlier revelations.

Kparker.com commented in WaPo – that still rankles, arming the left’s second-favorite organ of bashing us – was the NYTimes not open for the screed, kparker.com? – that many of the protests into her e-mail indicated that she was being silenced, and referenced Stalinism and the other shibboleths of the left, used against her own team of fellows seeking protection of this nation from the socialist hand that is reaching for our national tiller. Here’s a lesson, kparker.com, from Harry Truman’s hassles with General Douglas McArthur during the Korean War: the time for debate ends when a decision is made. That “Mac” got fired for complicating Truman’s policy from his military perch in Japan.

The time for debate among conservatives ended with Mac’s speech from the podium in Minnesota. All debate, all doubt, all hesitation MUST END when the choice is made – including the VP. Those of us who have had enormous doubts about Mac are required to SHUT UP AND GET IN LINE. Carping at our leader is as useful to ‘them’ as McArthur was helping undermine Truman’s authority to fight the Korean War.

No, kparker.com is not ‘being punished for speaking incorrectly’ – any more than public rage at political correctness is ‘censorship’ but merely the price of being In The Arena. For kparker.com and her fellow travelers on the Purity Express of Free Expression must suffer the slings and arrows of indignity when they give weapons to the left to tarnish the dignity of Palin, or Mac, any nominee of the only more-or-less conservative party we have.

As the political amateur, kparker.com wants to get her juice out, her ego displayed, to be the Cassandra of Palin, who can say she told us so – and indeed, it may be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as she and George Will and the rest of the Summer Soldiers’ Home give aid and comfort to Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and of course WaPo, which eagerly published her characterization of fellow conservatives as the self-same Neanderthals the left wishes to foist onto the public mind.

“The picture is this: Anyone who dares express an opinion that runs counter to the party line will be silenced,” insists Parker [emphasis added by moi] – and who can possibly ‘silence’ you? What power does the GOP or ACU or Heritage Foundation or the host of other conservative ‘power centers’ have to keep the WaPo and MSNBC crowd from allowing you to bray from the rooftops, like Douglas McArthur?

As to ‘bedrock principles’: loyalty to the strategy of your leaders, in time of political warfare, is a definitive and central political principle. See John Pitney’s “The Art of Political Warfare” if you wish to acquire a little professional political savvy. Parker is not being ‘punished’ by a principal of any power, but by expression by her readers, of a principle of support of the nominees who are barely a month out of the gate, and barely a month from the election. Tell us, kparker.com, exactly what would be the electoral result of your scheme, when Palin is replaced? Now, children, can you say “Eagleton”?

Partisanship bothers kparker.com! Guess what, it’s ALWAYS been a partisan nation, especially when the STAKES ARE HIGH. Rising voter turnout occurs when the partisanship is heightened; bipartisanship don’t get the voters to the polls. And “everyone’s to blame” is the morally inept or cowardly person’s way to avoid making a decision. In no political world of reality are the knights either pure or sullied. Never have I seen a controversy in which the two sides were exactly 50-50 responsible for the problem.

Be an adult, kparker.com, and PICK A SIDE. One is more honorable, if not perfectly so, than the other. One is more accurate and correct and competent, if not perfectly so, than the other partisans. What we need is not ‘post-partisan’ residents of the Summer Soldiers’ Home, but better expression of our ideas, our goals, our beliefs. It’s said that the greatest fear of liberals should be that the American public will someday come to truly grasp what they wish to do with power; and the ongoing greatest fear of conservatives is that the same public will not ever grasp what we truly believe and envision for society. The MSM, such as WaPo, eagerly distort our message, and kparker.com adds to that distortion with such comments as the whack at Palin’s religiosity: “Between prayers, I might add” is the kind of snarky bark we’d expect from Bill Maher.

The Summer Soldiers’ Home of the conservative columnists do more damage than a dozen skits by Tina Fey. And kparker.com is being welcomed with that tingly feeling up his leg by Chris Matthews on his next weekend syndicated yaparama. This past outing he was positively glowing with anticipation, as he cited kparker.com as a representative sample of conservative distaste for Palin.

The original article was amateurish enough – the act of ego, not of support of fighting socialism [and what is conservatism about if not challenging that ugly critter every time it rears its resentful, confiscatory skull?], but to maintain ideological neutrality, to seem above all that nasty partisanship. The retort to e-mail, in WaPo, was an insult to the tenth power.

Here’s a history project: check the partisanship of the election which gave us Presidents Jefferson, and Madison, Jackson and Lincoln, and both Roosevelts, as well as even Ike and JFK and LBJ and Reagan. Partisanship is what the fight is about. We need not less partisanship, but higher quality advocacy of the partisanship that is conservative-based.

My cringe reflex waits for the next tingly-leg moment by Chris Matthews, with kparker.com sitting in his adoring circle.

To cite Ike: Is there no end to the stupidity? On the right? Among our ‘allies’ who want to keep this country conservative, conserved and consecrated? One combatant who is not a candidate for the Summer Soldiers’ Home is conservative comic Dennis Miller, commenting last night on O’Reilly, with his suggestion to Saracuddah at the pending debate to reply to all awaiting her declaration:

“For those who expected me to be perfect, you must be disappointed; and for those of you who expect me to quit, you are about to be even more disappointed.”

While we don’t need no stinkin’ Tina Fey, we can survive a thousand Feys before we can endure another rise of stupidity – in print and on-air – against the SHAEF of our war to win the nation away from the threats which Obama and Biden and Hillary and the rest on the left will bring to us.

The time for raggin’ on Mac and Sarah ended the night of the balloon drop. Save it, stuff it, shove it down some dark hole – until the IDES OF NOVEMBER. Then let the dissent drip like acid rain. I have my own continuation of the concerns expressed for years regarding Mac.

But not until the election is decided.

That’s what a PROFESSIONAL political player would advise kparker.com. It’s not censorship, or Stalinism – just asking you to act professionally. This is too serious for amateurs. It’s the amateur who wants to grab the Oval ring. Try not adding to the erotic leg-tingle of Matthews, Maddow, Olbermann, Beckel, Ifill, et al. Just five weeks – can ya do that? Without accusing your fellows of Stalinism?

Now to await Sarah eating Biden’s ego like a moose sandwich on wry. ExileStreet

copyright 2008 Steve Finefrock

Finefrock is founder of Hollywood Forum, a speaker-bureau and panel-discussion vehicle to “Bring the Potomac to the Palisades” on issues that overlap politics and culture with the Hollywood film-TV influence on such national concerns. His scripts have addressed politics [including a TV series pilot/bible package about state political combat, called “A State of the Union”], hazardous materials [from twelve years in emergency management, including six years managing FEMA’s Superfund curriculum for hazmat], terrorism, equestrian reincarnation, serial murderer killing journalists in the nation’s capitol, and fantasy about time-wasters. Finefrock is proprietor of PhoneBooth: The Smallest Space in Hollywood…