She's not defending this position, merely describing it.

Which one of Ms. Parker's abominations are you referring to? If it is the Washington Post OpEd, here is what she says, right up front:

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

She says "I". This is not describing someone else's position, it is her own.

But I suspect you were really referring to the execrable column in the JWR. If so, here is what she says in that column:

Some run deeper than others and therein lies the truth of Josh Fry's political sense.

"[T]herein lies the truth" she says. She is not conveying a fact, what Josh Fry said. She is giving her own view that it is "the truth."

As for Josh Fry's "political sense", well that is nothing more than crass racism. He may claim to not be a racist, but, to paraphrase Forrest Gump, racist is as racist does.

Get over it.

Sorry dude, can't afford to. I've observed over the last couple of decades that racism has slowly come back out in the open, after the painstaking gains in the 60s and 70s. It is now OK for folks to talk about preferring full-blooded Americans. But they're not racists when they do so, see? And it is OK for Clinton to talk about "hard-working white workers", as if the black, yellow, red, latin, etc. kind didn't work hard, or didn't have the same concerns as human beings. History has shown us again and again what happens when whole categories of people are classed as somehow inferior. We don't want to go there.

It seems more and more that not only is bigotry becoming acceptable, but even fashionable in many quarters. We've discussed Josh Fry and Kathleen Parker. Here's another example:

Phyllis Schlafly (remember her?) is being given an honorary degree by Washington University. I won't go into why this is a bad idea; read this:

http://www.campusprogress.org/tools/209/

and this:

http://crazydrumguy.com/blog/2008/05/the-problem-with-honoring-phyllis-schlafly/

and this:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080526/pollitt

for some ideas.

The problem I have is WU's response to the firestorm of protests (here: http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/11727.html) In it they characterize Schlafly's bigotry like this: "serving as a lightning rod for vigorous debate on difficult issues where differences of opinion are profound and passionate."

Difficult issues? The premise of bigots like Schlafly and Parker is that all men (and women) are not equal under God or under the Law. I had hoped that we would have moved beyond this poisonous premise, and that institutions like the Washington Post and Washington University would not lend it credence.

Not only is being consistently wrong seemingly a necessary qualification to write for the New York Times Op-Ed page, but when one of these guys needs to disparage someone he reaches for the name of someone who has consistently been right! How's that for detachment from reality?

Or is the plan just to toss him overboard and replace him with a Republican who will vote the same way on telco immunity, and who won't support the Democrats on procedural matters?

If Carney does not listen to his constituents then we would be better off replacing him with a Republican. Better a wolf than a wolf in sheep's clothing. His Republican replacement would vote like Carney did, but at least would have no influence on House leadership, which is most certainly going to continue Democratic.

Bush can pardon the telcos all he wants. As I understand it, that just absolves them from criminal prosecution. The immunity Bush is seeking would also absolve them from civil prosecutions by citizens whose contracts with these telcos have been violated.

Dee Davis' piece begs the question: Why, if Democrats don't pay much attention to this area, do its inhabitants almost automatically default to the Republicans, who also pay little attention to it, and whose policies are indeed harmful to it? A large number of Appalachians have no health care coverage, and yet Republicans oppose universal health care coverage. They wish to privatize Social Security, which would be disastrous to the majority of Appalachians. They support mountaintop removal mining. They consistently wage war against the working people and their only real representatives, the trade unions. They disproportionately send their citizens to war. Indeed, the Republican Party is the party of the elites, by any definition of the word! So why is it that Democrats have to work for the Appalachian vote and Republicans don't? That's the real issue, and Davis is bending over backwards to avoid it.

For decades left-leaning politicians have advocated higher prices and less energy. They were going to save the environment by punishing Americans into driving less and driving smaller cars. Now their policies have succeeded with a vengeance.

And how did these left-leaning politicians manage this miraculous feat, when they have not been in power for most of these decades? Can Gingrich even name any of these supposed policies? It never ceases to amaze me how these clowns can get away with blaming those who have no power for all our ills, when they themselves have been at the helm all along.

He just won't debate anyone on any issue. His immediate fallback is to blow his interlocutor off with "I know that we have a respectful disagreement on that issue." He did it to Joe Klein, who called the Great Foreign Policy Expert on his erroneous assertion that Ahmadinejad was the man in charge of Iranian foreign policy. (That would be the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei--so called because he is, well, the Supreme Leader.) Expect much more of this "respectful" weaseling in the months to come. Those debating him will need to follow DeGeneres' lead and refuse to be dismissed like this.

(For the Joe Klein exchange, see http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/05/20/mccain_iran/index.html)