KATHLEEN PARKER: GAY-BAITING TO SAVE OUR SONS?

Some people might argue that the gay-baiting column Kathleen Parker published in yesterday's Washington Post was especially inappropriate given the title of the book she's publishing next month: Save the Males.

You probably know what was in the column:

Well, at least they didn't kiss.

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

Obama and Edwards make an attractive picture -- Ultra Brite cover boys of youth and glamour united against old men (and women) who worship the status quo. Obama [is] the man who makes Chris Matthews feel a thrill up his leg....

Obama and Edwards look and talk pretty, but Clinton, unflinching and steely, exudes pure brawn. When the time comes to sit across from the likes of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a chill in the heart may beat a thrill up the leg.

Now here's an excerpt from the publisher's description of Save the Males:

...Save the Males is a shrewd, amusing, and sure-to-be-controversial look at how men, maleness, and fatherhood have been under siege in American culture for decades. Kathleen Parker argues that the feminist movement veered off course from it’s original aim of helping women achieve equality and ended up making enemies of men. With piercing wit, this nationally syndicated columnist shows us how the pendulum has swung from the reasonable middle to a place where men have been ridiculed in the public square....

The real losers, should we continue on our present course, are not just grown men and women but our children....

As I say, some people might argue that, if you're worried about doing harm on impressionable male youths, you might not want to bash adult men for being, in your estimation, inadequately manly. But Parker, I'm sure, would argue that she's doing the boys a favor -- she'll telling them to man up and stop being sniveling little girls. The culture, she'd say, actually encourages them to be sniveling little girls, so she's doing them a favor by smacking them around and telling them not to be such faggots.

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Parker, of course, published something far more odious last week, a Buchananesque (Duke-like?) syndicated column defending a West Virginian who told a reporter recently that Barack Obama isn't "a full-blooded American." Parker wrote,

...We love to boast that we are a nation of immigrants. But there's a different sense of America among those who trace their bloodlines back through generations of sacrifice.

...What they know is that their forefathers fought and died for an America that has worked pretty well for more than 200 years. What they sense is that their heritage is being swept under the carpet while multiculturalism becomes the new national narrative....

My paternal grandparents were Italian immigrants. They sent two sons to World War II. My father made it back. My uncle didn't. My immigrant grandmother was a gold star mother.

Now, I don't know the answer to this, so I'm not jumping to conclusions, but I see that Kathleen Parker has three sons.

I wonder how many are of age to be in the military. And I wonder how many have signed up.

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UPDATE: Aimai reviews the literary history of male-saving.