To: Kathleen Parker
Pulitzer Prize Winner
Washington Post
re: your Op-Ed, “Don’t Reload. Speak Out.”
Dear Kathleen,
I’m so relieved to see that you’ve finally begun to draw attention to the profound risks that anti-government sentiment presents to our fragile democracy. It does take some time, after all, for the righteous indignation to rise among rational thinking, work-a-day people, like yourself. It is these folk whose courage is ordinarily found in the struggle to get up every day, report to work, pay taxes, raise families and educate their children, in the face of day to day stresses. But there comes a time when that kind of courage must be replaced by a rising up, which you so ably did in your Sunday, April 18, Washington Post op-ed, “Don’t reload. Speak out.”
I know this rising up, this boiling over, takes time to percolate. Say, eight years maybe? Eight years of—as you describe—a political environment, “so toxic that we could see another Timothy McVeigh emerge?” In fact, I was just perusing a website that contains scores, if not hundreds of images of people rising up during the Bush years. People, who at various protests carried signs that read, “Death to extremist Christian terrorist pig Bush!” Or, “Bush, the only dope worth shooting.” Or, “I’m here to kill Bush, shoot me.” Check it out yourself, Kathleen, at www.zombietime.com. There were too many death threats against President Bush to count in those years. Of course, the Post didn’t cover much of it, no networks reported on it, because you and I were just accumulating evidence. The pot was lukewarm, as it were. Protest was patriotic.
But now, the pot has boiled over. So, I know exactly what you mean when you say that Sarah Palin’s careless, callous remark, “Don’t retreat. Reload,” feels “so off.” It sure does feel off, but it didn’t in 2008, when President Obama said, “Get in their face, punch back twice as hard!” We knew then that it was merely metaphor, not an invitation to the dimwitted among us to literally punch someone. So, when thugs from SEIU, President Obama’s favorite union, beat up, punched and kicked an African American tea-partier named Ken Gladney in St. Louis last year, and called him a “nigger,” we didn’t take it literally. Our pot had not yet boiled over, had it? The term “nigger “was only a metaphor for, perhaps, Ken Gladney’s thinking being a bit misdirected.
Nor was that pot boiling over when Army Major Nidal Hasan, that poor discriminated-against Muslim psychiatrist victim, just had to unload ( sorry for my incendiary metaphor ) on those fellow soldiers at Ft. Hood. Who wouldn’t have reached the breaking point under his circumstances? We know that he got plenty of spiritual therapy from the American Muslim preacher, Anwar al Awlaki, but I guess it just didn’t work!
Hassan must have understood the plight of Rep. John Lewis, when during the 1994 floor debate on welfare reform, the civil rights hero called all Republicans—not just the troglodyte Christian wing, but all of them, “Nazis.” The Congressman said the Republicans were, “coming for the poor, the weak, the elderly!” He was right! Welfare reform legislation was, as we now know, a disaster! All those people removed from the cycle of dependency and generational helplessness. With our taxes on the rise, we miss our poor, helpless dependents! They are tax deductible, aren’t they? Damn Nazi Republicans!
And don’t you just know there are more of those wing nuts out there. In fact, you said in your piece that, “It only takes one.” You’re right! Well, except for when it takes three. That’s the number of thugs who last week broke the leg (in four places) of Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal’s chief fundraiser, Allee Bautsch, and who broke the nose, and jaw of her boyfriend, as the couple left a Republican party fundraising dinner. Now, we don’t know if the attackers were among the anti-government, socialist, anti-capitalist demonstrators gathering outside the meeting that day threatening the Republican gathering. But isn’t it curious how one of the organizers of that protest—a man named Daniel Mauch, removed his Youtube channel—the one that demonstrated his “organic anger” as you call it, just after the beating? And now, even conservative bloggers who are writing about that are getting threats. Here’s one sent to the blogger, “Tennessee Conservative” www.tncon.com:
This conservative doucheblogger is posting personal info on activists and trying to frame them on an attack on a GOP aid… He is the enemy of all [sic] amonymous, everywhere. Do not forgive. Teach him a lesson he’ll never forget.
I’ve seen a picture of those two Republicans lying on the street, battered and bruised. In fact, I thought it would have made a great picture over your op-ed, instead of that 15-year-old picture from the Oklahoma City bombing. On that subject, is there some sort of a problem transmitting Internet photos to newspapers? I ask, because I haven’t seen that photo of the beaten up Republicans in any mainstream newspapers, nor of Ken Gladney when he was beaten up on camera. Gee, I wonder why?
Oh well, Kathleen! If there’s a way to transmit those photos I’m sure you’ll find it. Because I know your pot is boiling over with righteous indignation. Mine, too. By the way, let me know when you find any evidence of those African-American congressmen being slurred. Still no takers for Andrew Breitbart’s $100,000 reward for a tape that shows it. And I see that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver has been backing away from the “spat upon” comments, recently. There is a tape of that. Clear as day. Funny how one little piece of spittle emerging from lips of a chanter yelling, “Kill the Bill!” can turn into a giant hocked loogie in your Postie kind of echo chamber.
But I digress. Now armed with (sorry again, poor choice of words!) the World Wide Web, I’ve canceled my subscription to your paper, five days a week. But I still subscribe to the Saturday and Sunday editions, when I’m lounging around at home, cup of coffee in hand. I still feel the desire to open the front door, retrieve the Post, rip open (sorry) the front page and devour (sorry) the contents. That’s how I came to read your piece today. I chuckled at your opinion. And I belly laughed at the notion of you winning a Pulitzer. Didn’t our hopey-changey president snag (sorry) a similar big award? Yes, yes… it was the Nobel Peace Prize. Given for his progress in creating world peace. Or was he taking aim (so sorry!) at whirled peas? Pulitzer… Nobel… Whatever. Those awards committees sure shoot (oops!) for the best, don’t they?
Yours truly,
Anchorman
Anchorman a well-known news anchor from a top-10, big city station. The Daily Caller has elected to redact his identity to protect his anonymity.