Bully for Jonah Goldberg for his Kathleen Parker Takedown

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth — as long as we're setting ourselves free — is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.

The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it.

But they need those votes!

So it has been for the Grand Old Party since the 1980s or so, as it has become increasingly beholden to an element that used to be relegated to wooden crates on street corners.

Short break as writer ties blindfold and smokes her last cigarette.

Which is to say, the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.

I don't know what's more grating, the quasi-bigotry that has you calling religious Christians low brows, gorillas and oogedy-boogedy types or the bravery-on-the-cheap as you salute — in that winsome way — your own courage for saying what (according to you) needs to be said. Please stop bragging about how courageous you are for weathering a storm of nasty email you invite on yourself by dancing to a liberal tune. You aren't special for getting nasty email, from the right or the left. You aren't a martyr smoking your last cigarette. You're just another columnist, talented and charming to be sure, but just another columnist. You are not Joan of the Op-Ed Page. Perhaps the typical Washington Post reader (or editor) doesn't understand that. But you should, and most conservatives familiar with these issues can see through what you're doing.

For the record, I have no problem with arguments about how the GOP has become too religious. I ended my book with pretty much that argument. I opposed Mike Huckabee vociferously because he seemed the quintessential rightwing progressive imbued with a rightwing social gospel. These are all good arguments to make and they have good responses to them. But please drop the nonsense about how the G-O-D people  or the Palin people are low brows and beasts. There are low brows and beasts everywhere, on every side of the ideological spectrum. Maybe if you got more ecumenical hate email you'd realize that.

I am in agreement with Goldberg as those of you who read my blog know. And at first, I went out of my way to defend Parker because she was saying some things that needed to be said and I backed her right to say it without being castigated for not being "conservative enough." But she has taken this argument way beyond any rational conclusion and now engages in verbal assassination while holding herself up to be some kind of heroine. It has been embarrassing to read.

Perhaps this missive from a colleague will shut her up but I'm doubting it. Parker has too much invested in this "conservative gadfly" image she is promoting and will no doubt respond to Jonah with some withering invective.