When you point one finger at someone, you still lost the friggin' election

Earlier this week, the lefty blogs were absolutely apopleptic with joy over Kathleen Parker's column, where she basically told the g.o.p. that they need to give up on their obsession with, as she called it, armband religion:

"The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it... it has become increasingly beholden to an element that used to be relegated to wooden crates on street corners...the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows.

[T]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...preaching to the choir produces no converts."

Now, Ms. Parker has, at the very least, shown significantly more courage in calling out her party than most of her conservative cohorts. And she's become somewhat of a pariah in the right-wing community as a result - the classy folks at RedState have already classified her as a leper, and her columns have met with great disfavor from readers ever since she dared to criticize Sarah Palin.

But, I felt like there should have been a bit more self-examination in this column. See, while Parker never came out as a religious advocate, her columns for years have focused on "family values" and "moral values" issues that are so often associated with the religious right. Her criticism of the anti-intellectualism of the movement is a bit hollow itself; I took her to task in a previous life for her defense of teaching intelligent design in schools.

In the greater scope, this is actually fun to watch. All the righties are pointing fingers at each other, but very few of them are willing to take the additional step of saying "I was wrong, and here's why." And as long as they're willing to take this attitude, the rebuilding project of the republican party is going to be delayed longer and longer.

I got no problem with that.