A few days ago, National Review columnist Kathleen Parker had the temerity to suggest that Sarah Palin lacked a certain level of ... let's say ... qualifications to be vice-president. Parker was super-nice about it, insisting that Palin was a great person who was just "out of her league" as running mate to John McCain, and should maybe step down. Parker was hardly a voice in the wilderness on this regard, either! Folks like George Will, David Brooks, Fareed Zakaria, and Charles Krauthammer have all more or less said the same thing. For her efforts, Parker received several metric tons of what Jezebel might call "Crap Emails From Troglodytic Wingnut Turds," wishing Parker all manner of ill and harm and malignity.
Now, I rather think Parker has handled the whole matter with aplomb. In her account of the blowback, which she wrote for the Washington Post, Parker is good-humored in her disappointment with how debased the discourse had gotten. In an appearance with Chuck Todd this afternoon on MSNBC, she was much the same. But then Todd went to commercial, and when he came back, there was dessicated GOP also-ran Fred Thompson, jerkfacing it up.
[WATCH.]
TODD: Joining me is former Senator and former Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson. Senator Thompson, I want to give you a chance to just respond to Kathleen Parker and her critiques of Governor Palin.
THOMPSON: I don't have any response to make to her. I don't know her. I don't think I've ever read anything she's ever written, but I know she's getting a lot of notoriety now. I'm sorry she considers herself to be a victim. Maybe she is. If she wants to talk about being a victim of slander and libel on her family, maybe she can talk to Sarah Palin.
Oh, Fred Thompson! If you'd shown one quarter of the zeal and enthusiasm with which you smack around a conservative woman on teevee for having an opinion of her own back when you were running as a candidate for President, maybe you'd be the GOP candidate disappointing everyone with your erratic choices!