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You've probably heard about how Dick Wadhams, the chairman of the Colorado Republicans, told the world that he couldn't take being a Republican official anymore because of the nuts in his party.

Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams dropped his reelection bid on Monday, and fired some parting shots at the Tea Party and the hard-line conservatives he thinks are hurting the party's electoral success.

"I have tired of those who are obsessed with seeing conspiracies around every corner and who have terribly misguided notions of what the role of the state party is while saying 'uniting conservatives' is all that is needed to win competitive races across the state," Wadhams wrote in a memo to the Colorado Republican State Central Committee obtained by The Denver Post.

He joined CNN's Parker Spitzer show and explained to Kathleen why he is leaving in a little more detail. He did try to soften the blow on his party

PARKER: Now to politics. It finally happened. A Republican Party leader has gotten so fed up with the party's antics and he says he's not going to take it anymore. Dick Wadhams is the chairman of the Colorado Republicans, but today he went rogue. He announced he's not running for a third time because, and I quote, "I'm tired of the nuts who have no grasp of what the state party role is."

He joins us now from Denver.

Welcome, Dick.

DICK WADHAMS, CHAIRMAN, COLORADO REPUBLICAN PARTY: Hi, Kathleen. Nice to be with you.

PARKER: It's great to have you here. So I've got to ask you, Dick, what took you so long?

WADHAMS: Well, I had four great years as state chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. I wouldn't trade it for anything. And you know, after four years, it's time to do something else.

PARKER: What pushed you over the edge? What was the final straw?

WADHAMS: You know, Kathleen, we had a lot of chaos in our governor's race to say the least, this past election, where we had somebody nominated who proved to be not a great candidate, whose resume was exaggerated.

We had Tom Tancredo enter the race. It was quite a mess. Had a lot of activists who initially where accusing the state party of cutting back room deals, nominating candidates, which was not true. We had a very free and open and fair nomination process. And then when our candidate eventual nominee that they supported collapsed, the accusations were made, why didn't you take care of him to begin with? Why did you ever let him get this far? Well, you can't have it both ways.

Parker goes on to try and be as gentle as she can and he responded in time. What was interesting in this interview was that Wadhams feels social issues won't matter in the 2012 election because they want to WIN!.

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It's getting boring watching the MSM try to fit the teabaggers in a particular category that makes them feel comfortable. I saw a shift towards the more realistic on The Chris Matthews Show this weekend. A major topic was the right wing fringe inhabiting the tea party movement and the panel wondered how dangerous could these people really be?

Well, they can be very dangerous. Dr. Tiller was just murdered, but since the nut didn't identify himself with the tea party movement, he's not being drawn into the conversation. But he should, because right wing violent speech helped produce him.

At least Joe Klein calls out FOX News for their culpability in stirring the pot of hatred which can be looked at as basically seditious.

Klein: We've had movements like this throughout history....the difference now is a television network, I'm going to call it FOX. The presence of FOX, which allows its commentators like Sean Hannity, like Glenn Beck to rouse the tea party. Sean Hannity was in an event this week where the tea party was raising money to have people sit in the same stands with him. And the biggest difference in the past when there were right wing movements started we had ...the responsible Republican party would slap it down and there is no responsible leadership in the Republican party now.

Norah is sort of confused because she sees soccer moms at tea party rallies who are just worried about the deficit, but then she remarks there are these militia groups, these hate groups who believe Obama is coming after their guns.

Klein: I did a little bit of research...I looked up the definition of sedition, which is conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state and a lot of these statements-- especially coming from people like Glenn Beck and to a certain extent, Sarah Palin--are right up close to being sedition.

John Heilemann agrees with Klein and calls out Limbaugh for using the word "regime" to describe the Obama White House.

David Neiwert and I have been writing about this topic for a long time and I'm glad the MSM is finally recognizing the truth even if it's taken a really long time for them. When we finally release our new book, you'll see the evidence in a nice, neat package that will blow your mind. The Tea Party movement is bringing the hidden far right fringe out in the open with the help of FOX News and these people are dangerous.

Remember, conservatives can never say or do anything wrong. And there is never an end to how far right one can go. Klein makes the observation that violence might change that perspective, but the jury is still out.

Kathleen Parker writes in the WaPo about the tea partiers from a right wing perspective:

But words matter, as we never tire of saying. And these are especially sensitive times, given our first African American president and unavoidable fears about the worst-case scenario. If Jodie Foster could bestir the imagination of Hinckley, a Sarah Palin in the Internet age could move regiments.

Such fears are not unfounded. I hear daily from dissatisfied Americans who feel their duty is not only to protest but to fight if necessary. Here is one recent example, in response to a column I had written about America's true centrist nature:

"Sorry, honey, but we don't need the squishy middle right now. We need the hyper patriots, the combat vets ready to defend the constitution with arms if necessary."

The distance between such thinking and recent examples of overt hostility seems too little. In this space, the unthinkable becomes plausible. [..]

The only palatable answer is what conservatives say they love best: self-control and personal responsibility. When someone spews obscenities, shout them down. When politicians and pundits use inflammatory language, condemn them.

When you choose to remain silent, consider yourself complicit in whatever transpires.

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The bobbleheads sure are doing their part in the Bush Magical Legacy Rehabilitation Tour. First we have the mysterious "Miss me yet?" billboard, then Tweety "Doesn't he look yummy in a flight suit?" Matthews asks if the nation will feel "nostalgia" for Bush with his memoir coming out, and every time you turn around there's a Bushie or a Cheney promoting the failed policies that saw Bush leave office with a record disapproval rating. Talk about a disconnect--or maybe it's just willful misinformation. There are no Americans wishing back for the days of the Bush presidency, for crissakes. We're still scarred from it, why would Americans want to open those wounds again?

Whichever way you want to categorize it, there is nothing more ludicrous and absent of facts than Kathleen Parker insisting that Bush has acted "nobly" since leaving office.

Is that right?

So is criticizing his successor not once, but twice--even after saying that the new Commander-in-Chief "deserved his silence", noble? Don't forget one was when he went to a foreign country--his speech in Calgary, Canada--and took thinly veiled swipes at Obama, saying that the two month old presidency harkened back to Hoover?

Is saying that Jimmy Carter "made his life miserable" noble?

Bush's post-presidency life has been fairly low-profile, especially in comparison to his ever-present and compulsively vocal vice president. He's made a few paid speeches, wrote his memoirs (which garnered him a comparatively small advance--perhaps a better indicator of how much Bush is expected to be missed by the American people) and worked on his fundraising for his library housed at SMU, whose primary purpose appears to be to rehab his legacy, much to the consternation of the staff there:

Their objections stem from the fear that the Bush center will act like a private think tank for neoconservative ideologues. “They get the cover of a university without having to play by its rules,” says Benjamin Johnson, an associate professor of history whose Bush Library Blog detailed the controversy at its height, between 2007 and 2008. The plans for the Bush institute sailed through S.M.U.’s administration, however, with the help of people like Ray Hunt, the oilman and longtime Bush supporter and friend, who is on the university’s board of trustees.

“We’re not going to have any of the usual controls over teaching and research hires and reviews,” complains Johnson. “My concerns have actually been heightened by the collapse of the Bush administration because it seems to me he and his circle are intent on rehabilitating him, and he is held in such disrepute by so many people across the country and the planet. I’m afraid this is going to be the main vehicle by which they try and rehabilitate their reputation.”

And by no measure, Kathleen Parker, can that be considered a noble effort.

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Oh poor, put-upon Bill O'Reilly. Those mean old "liberals" in the media are just itching to blame him for the assassination of Dr. George Tiller. Never mind that the only "liberal" cited is Olbermann, who flatly rejects the label and those who did actually call attention to the inciting rhetoric of O'Reilly in regards to Tiller were bloggers like C&L, who of course, were not invited by Howard Kurtz to give their point of view.

Kathleen Parker has the unenviable job of defending O'Reilly, though it's made easier by Kurtz's framing, which shows clearly where his sympathies lie:

KURTZ: Some liberal commentators couldn’t wait to accuse O’Reilly of inciting the violence that led to George Tiller’s murder. Fair or unfair?

PARKER: Irrelevant. I mean, yes, of course, it’s unfair. You can’t blame anyone for a crime except the person that commits the crime. Clearly, people on the far left are always looking for an excuse to attack Bill O’Reilly. And Keith Olbermann and O’Reilly tend to bounce off each other a good bit. So I’m not sure who this argument is really between.

Um, news flash to Parker, you absolutely CAN blame someone who incites violence, even if they don't actually commit the act. Ask Charlie Manson.

Parker's viewpoint is a little morally troubling, as she tries to play false equivalencies in the abortion debate and pooh-pooh the violent rhetoric as an "all's fair as each side tries to defend their stance":

KURTZ: What George Tiller was doing was legal, although many people did not like what he was doing, but I also want to mention he was shot in 1993 when there was no “O’Reilly Factor”, like there was no Fox News. Do you think, Kathleen, that the people pointing the fingers at O’Reilly with varying degrees of fervor are politicizing this tragedy?

PARKER: Well, of course they are. This is…this is the Topic du Jour anyway, because of Obama’s recent address to Notre Dame. It’s on everyone’s mind. And you know, any opportunity for the pro-choice people to make their case more strongly is going to be taken advantage of, and same…and vice versa. I mean, we’re always listening to the extremes on either side. They’re the squeakiest wheels, the loudest voices and they get the attention.

So denouncing organizations that foment violence like Operation Rescue is the equivalent of shooting women's health providers? Defending the rights of women to make a legal choice is an extreme position? Really? Ugh, the morality of the "Moral Majority" is enough to make you sick.

But here's where it gets funny. After denouncing the media for going after Bill O'Reilly, Parker actually agrees with all those liberal talking heads (seriously, someone point out to me where these multitudes of liberals are, I need to do some DVR programming) that this tragic event should illustrate how important it is not to broadcast such violent rhetoric:

PARKER: I would love for the outcome of this to be that O’Reilly—and all of these talking heads who become so completely over the top so many times—just to say look, this is a teaching moment. We’re not gonna do this anymore. We’re not …we’re gonna make our cases as strongly, we’re going to be passionate, but we’re going to tone down the rhetoric. I mean, wouldn’t that be a great result?

Well, yes, it would, Kathleen...and that's why we're saying that Bill O'Reilly should take responsibility for that kind of violent rhetoric. Is that so hard to understand?

PARKER: The media followed the fire, clearly. You know, wherever the heat is, that’s where—and I’m part of the media, I know how this works, I’ve done this for a long time—where the action is. But there is, I think, the media are always going to defend the pro-choice position. They’re less likely to portray sympathetically the pro-life position, that’s just a fact.

Damn, and just when I thought you were getting it, Kathleen. The media (which is neither monolithic nor particularly liberal-leaning) is not defending the pro-choice position, you nimrod. That's the law of the land, whether you like it or not. Violating laws--like murder and terrorist acts--and trying to disrespect civil rights of others is not a sympathetic position for anyone to advocate.

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Let's get ready to RUMBLE!

The stage is set. Conservatives are fighting one another to see who will dominate the now defunct Republican party. Christian Conservatives led by James Dobson have been running things since Newt Gingrich launched his Southern Strategy back in '94, but some conservatives are not staying silent any longer about the dominance the religious zealots have had. Kathleen Parker has been speaking up ever since Bill Kristol convinced John McCain to nominate Sarah Palin as VP in their losing effort. She was blasted for it by angry righty wingers.

KURTZ: Here is what you wrote this week: "Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a dumpster, but since she didn't, I should off myself."

Now, this is all because some readers didn't like what you had to say about Sarah Palin.

PARKER: Some people were very upset. Approximately 11,000 so far, and counting.

Yes, I wrote about Sarah Palin stepping down from the ticket. I felt after her third interview -- I didn't think any of her interviews were very good, but the third was catastrophic -- that she ought to leave the ticket and let McCain try to put somebody else in place to do a better job and help him with maybe the economy.

<>

KURTZ: What about the reaction? All those e-mails, all the vitriol directed at you, I mean, that has got to be somewhat depressing. Are you expected because you are on the conservative side of the spectrum to defend any nominee the Republican Party throws out there?

James Dobson is none too happy with Parker for not embracing the extremely radical values of Palin and is now urging his flock to go after Parker in his latest screed.

So, Kathleen Parker has determined that getting rid of social conservatives and shelving the values they fight for is the solution to what ails the Republican Party (“Giving Up on God,” Nov. 19). Isn’t that a little like Benedict Arnold handing George Washington a battle plan to win the Revolution?

Whatever she once was, Ms. Parker is certainly not a conservative anymore, having apparently realized it’s a lot easier to be popular among your journalistic peers when your keyboard tilts to the left. She writes that “armband religion” — those of us who “wear our faith on our sleeve,” I suppose, or is it meant to compare socially conservative Christians to Nazis? — is “killing the Republican Party.” Lest readers miss the point, she literally spells it out. The GOP’s big problem? G-O-D.

TAKE ACTION

Do you have something you'd like to say to Kathleen Parker about her recent column criticizing socially conservative Christians and their involvement in matters of government and public policy? You can send her an e-mail — please be respectful — through our Action Center.

This is an interesting fight taking place. The other favorite of social repressors is Bobby Jindal, the man who love Intelligent Design and brags about exorcisms. Poor Kathleen Parker, I almost feel for her.

Who will win?

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Columnist Kathleen Parker is continuing her martyr tour to complain about the meanies who have gone after her for daring to say that Sarah Palin should step down.

Frankly, I'm a little disgusted by Parker's self-congratulatory stance of being "on the front lines" and taking fire for saying things that the GOP don't want to have said out loud. That's not bravery...that's acknowledging reality.

And though he doesn't get her to say it out right, I suspect there's another Barack voter sitting right there.

Right wing columnist Kathleen Parker has been viciously attacked by over 11,000 right wing emailers for saying that she thought Sarah Palin wasn't qualified for the job. We're used to seeing the media attack the left wing bloggers by quoting anonymous comments left on our blogs which is supposed to be a fair substitute for our own writings. It's about time the right was exposed for this behavior as she appeared on CNN's Reliable Sources to discuss this incident.

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KURTZ: Here is what you wrote this week: "Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a dumpster, but since she didn't, I should off myself."

Now, this is all because some readers didn't like what you had to say about Sarah Palin.

PARKER: Some people were very upset. Approximately 11,000 so far, and counting.

Yes, I wrote about Sarah Palin stepping down from the ticket. I felt after her third interview -- I didn't think any of her interviews were very good, but the third was catastrophic -- that she ought to leave the ticket and let McCain try to put somebody else in place to do a better job and help him with maybe the economy.

<>

KURTZ: What about the reaction? All those e-mails, all the vitriol directed at you, I mean, that has got to be somewhat depressing. Are you expected because you are on the conservative side of the spectrum to defend any nominee the Republican Party throws out there?

PARKER: Apparently. Apparently so.

KURTZ: And for those who missed the column, you said -- this was after one of her encounters with Katie Couric -- "If Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing. And if B.S. were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself."

Their posters are as nasty and sleazy on the internet as anybody, but the media likes to create a false narrative about the left so they usually ignore it. However, Parker is one of their own and this time the Villagers didn't sweep it under the rug.

(transcripts below the fold via CNN)

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FireDogLake:

Parker, who last week called for Palin to step down, now finds herself the target of a Wingnut Two Minutes of Hate.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a dumpster, but since she didn't, I should "off" myself. [..]

After 20 years of column writing, I'm familiar with angry mail. But the past few days have produced responses of a different order. Not just angry, but vicious and threatening.

And she knows vicious. Here's Parker in 2003, on the Democratic presidential candidates:

Here's a note I got recently from a friend and former Delta Force member, who has been observing American politics from the trenches: "These bastards like Clark and Kerry and that incipient ass, Dean, and Gephardt and Kucinich and that absolute mental midget Sharpton, race baiter, should all be lined up and shot."

Suck it up, Kathleen. You've been tossing red meat to a caged rabid animal for two decades. No sympathy when it finally bites you.

Now, she whines:

...when we decide that a person is a traitor and should die for having an opinion different from one's own, we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk.

You reap what you sow, Kathleen. How do you think the liberal community has felt since George Bush took office?

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On Sunday's Q&A, host Brian Lamb sat down with National Review columnist Kathleen Parker to discuss her take on the comings and goings in Washington DC. My buddy Heather noted this odd little bit of unsound morality and logic. Parker wrote a scathing piece on McClellan's book What Happened for the NRO, coming thisclose to likening him to a serial killer (No, I'm not kidding, read it yourself). See, for Parker, McClellan has reached the apex of immorality, because he listened to the Bush administration's plans, apparently put up no fight (of course, this is according to the White House, whose veracity should have dubious credibility) and then said nothing until he left the White House and wrote a book.

Don't get me wrong, if I had been in Scott McClellan's position, you could be damn sure I would be speaking up loudly and longly while in the White House. And I'd probably be out of a job and smeared within an inch of my life by the Karl Rove machine (see how they treated Paul O'Neill as an example). But for Parker, the fact that he left the White House and then spoke up makes him more deplorable than those he spoke up against.

Parker: ... I've met Scott and he is, comes across as just the sweetest, nicest fellow. I took great umbrage at this primarily because, whether the... you know, if... if he were... if he sat in those meetings where evidence was being trumped up and people are actually dying and never so much as cleared his throat or raised an eyebrow--which is what I'm told by everyone in the White House--then I think that he is guilty of something much greater than whatever he presents to the public in this book. You don't sit there and listen to what you now consider lies and know... you walk out the door. An honorable man walks out the door. And you can go and call a press conference if you are the Press Secretary of the President of the United States. You can call a press conference. You can walk out and get a book contract that day, but you don't sit through it for years and years and then say 'well, I think I'll go get a book contract and you know present basically my notes that I've taken all these years knowing that these people were doing wrong.' So I simply don't trust a person like that.

But you'll trust the ones that did the lying and put the Americans in harm's way and continue to do so? They are actually LESS offensive to your mind than someone whose conscience was so burdened that he left the job and spoke out against what happened?

Methinks someone needs their moral compass re-calibrated.

Transcripts below the fold: (thanks to Heather)

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When it starts looking bad for them, count on conservatives to making ridiculous smears that show how bigoted they are. Fresh from the "liberal media" pages of the Washington Post, courtesy of our friends at Sadly, No!:

Welp, here's yet another low reached by Fred Hiatt's allegedly prestigious op-ed page:

The Democrats Hug It Out
By Kathleen Parker

Well, at least they didn't kiss.

I was bracing myself for the lip lock Wednesday when John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama.

Don't look at me. David "Mudcat" Saunders, Edwards's former rural adviser, came up with the idea, saying Obama should kiss Edwards on the lips "to kill this 41-point loss," referring to Hillary Clinton's landslide victory in the West Virginia primary.

Instead, the two men exchanged a manly air-hug to commemorate the moment when Edwards threw Clinton under the upholstered sofa on his grandmama's front porch.

As Edwards gave what amounted to a stump speech highlighting his favorite subject - John Edwards - Americans were reminded of why the North Carolina son-of-a-millworker won't be their presidential nominee.

Enraptured by his own message, Edwards seemed reluctant to hand over the microphone. He finally relinquished the stage, after describing, yet again, the "wall" that he says divides Americans: "There is one man who knows in his heart that it is time to create one America, not two. And that man is Barack Obama."

The "wall" refers to the one Edwards erected in the hearts and minds of Americans who hadn't yet realized they were miserable, disenfranchised and seething with rage - not the wall that used to run through Berlin.

It's tough to list all the things that make this column so mind-crushingly stupid, but let's give it a shot: Read on...