Kathleen Parker is a columnist for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''. Parker is a consulting faculty member at the Buckley School of Public Speaking, a popular guest on cable and network news programs and a regular guest on NBC's ''

Meet the Press ''Meet the Press'' is a weekly American television news/interview program broadcast on NBC. It is the longest-running program on American television, though the current format bears little resemblance to the debut episode on November 6, 1947. ' ...

'', and previously on MSNBC's ''

Hardball with Chris Matthews ''Hardball with Chris Matthews'' was an American television talk show that was hosted by Chris Matthews. The program premiered on the now-defunct America's Talking network in 1994 (as ''Politics with Chris Matthews'') before moving on CNBC, and ...

''. Parker considers herself politically to be "mostly right of center", has been described as a "

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

-leaning columnist", and was the highest-scoring conservative pundit in a 2012 retrospective study of pundit prediction accuracy in 2008.

Early life and career

Parker was raised in Winter Haven in

Polk County, Florida Polk County is located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. The county population was 725,046, as of the 2020 census. Its county seat is Bartow, and its largest city is Lakeland. Polk County comprises the Lakeland–Winter Ha ...

, daughter of lawyer John Hal Connor Jr. and Connor's first wife, Martha Ayer Harley (originally from

Barnwell County, South Carolina Barnwell County is a county in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, its population was 20,589. Barnwell County is part of the Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is located in the Central Savann ...

who died in March 1955 when Parker was 3 years old). Parker often spent summers with her mother's family in

Columbia, South Carolina Columbia is the capital of the U.S. state of South Carolina. With a population of 136,632 at the 2020 census, it is the second-largest city in South Carolina. The city serves as the county seat of Richland County, and a portion of the city ...

. Parker attended

Converse College Converse University is a private university in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It was established in 1889 by a group of Spartanburg residents and named after textile pioneer Dexter Edgar Converse. It was originally a women's college but now admits ...

before

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...

, where she received a Bachelor's degree in 1973 followed by a Master's degree in Spanish in 1976. Parker's career in journalism began in 1977, when she was hired to cover Hanahan, Goose Creek and Moncks Corner by the now-defunct '' Charleston Evening Post''. A columnist since 1987, she has worked for five newspapers, from Florida to California. She has written for several magazines, including ''

The Weekly Standard ''The Weekly Standard'' was an American neoconservative political magazine of news, analysis and commentary, published 48 times per year. Originally edited by founders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, the ''Standard'' had been described as a "red ...

'', ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'', '' Town & Country'', ''

Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Food and drink * Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo" History * Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953 Hotels and resorts * Cosmopoli ...

'', and ''

Fortune Small Business ''Fortune Small Business'' (''FSB'') was an American magazine published 10 times per year from 1991 to 2009. It was a joint venture by The Fortune Group at Time Inc. and the American Express Small Business Services. It was delivered to 1 million ...

''. She serves on the Board of Contributors for ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

''s Forum Page, part of the newspaper's Opinion section. She is also a contributor to the online magazine ''

The Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...

''. Parker is the author of ''Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care''. From fall 2010, Parker co-hosted the cable news program ''

Parker Spitzer ''In the Arena'' is an American one-hour show on CNN that premiered October 4, 2010 as ''Parker Spitzer'' and was hosted by former New York Democratic governor Eliot Spitzer and Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist Kathleen Parker. It was ...

'' on

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

with former

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

governor

Eliot Spitzer Eliot Laurence Spitzer (born June 10, 1959) is an American politician and attorney. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he was the 54th governor of New York from 2007 until his resignation in 2008. Spitzer was b ...

. Parker was the 1993 winner of the

H. L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...

Writing Award presented by ''

The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...

''. ''

The Week ''The Week'' is a weekly news magazine with editions in the United Kingdom and United States. The British publication was founded in 1995 and the American edition in 2001. An Australian edition was published from 2008 to 2012. A children's edi ...

'' magazine named her one of the nation's top five columnists in 2004 and 2005. She won the 2010

Pulitzer Prize for Commentary The Pulitzer Prize for Commentary is an award administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism "for distinguished commentary, using any available journalistic tool". It is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes that are ...

for a selection of political opinion columns. Parker wrote about the April 2019 arrest of

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous Source (journalism), sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activism, Internet acti ...

founder

Julian Assange Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army inte ...

in the

Embassy of Ecuador, London The Embassy of Ecuador in London is the diplomatic mission of Ecuador in the United Kingdom. It is headed by the ambassador of Ecuador to the United Kingdom. It is located in the Knightsbridge area of London, in the Royal Borough of Kensington a ...

, comparing him unfavorably to the "historic act of bravery" by

Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is an American political activist, and former United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, Ellsberg precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the ''Pent ...

, who leaked the ''

Pentagon Papers The ''Pentagon Papers'', officially titled ''Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force'', is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States in the Vietnam War, United States' political and military ...

'' about American government lies in the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. Assange's "non-fans—including many in the U.S. media—long have viewed him as a sociopathic interloper operating under the protection of free speech.".

Controversies

During the

2008 U.S. presidential election The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from ...

Parker called on the Republican vice-presidential nominee, Governor

Sarah Palin Sarah Louise Palin (; Heath; born February 11, 1964) is an American politician, commentator, author, and reality television personality who served as the ninth governor of Alaska from 2006 until her resignation in 2009. She was the 2008 R ...

, to step down from the party ticket (the day before the Vice-Presidential debate), saying that a series of media interviews showed that Palin was "clearly out of her league". Parker received over 11,000 responses, mostly from conservatives critical of her opinion. During the 2018

Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination On July 9, 2018, President of the United States, President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed retiring ...

, Parker wrote a column advancing the theory that the alleged victim,

Christine Blasey Ford Christine Margaret Blasey Ford ( ; born November 1966) is an American professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She specializes in designing statistical models f ...

, was mistaken in her identification of

Brett Kavanaugh Brett Michael Kavanaugh ( ; born February 12, 1965) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on July 9, 2018, and has served since Oc ...

, and that there must be a

doppelgänger A doppelgänger (), a compound noun formed by combining the two nouns (double) and (walker or goer) (), doppelgaenger or doppelganger is a biologically unrelated look-alike, or a double, of a living person. In fiction and mythology, a doppelg ...

. The doppelgänger theory was criticized by other ''Washington Post'' columnists, such as

Max Boot Max Alexandrovich Boot (born September 12, 1969) is an American author, consultant, editorialist, lecturer, and military historian. He worked as a writer and editor for ''Christian Science Monitor'' and then for ''The Wall Street Journal'' in the ...

Erik Wemple Erik Wemple is an American journalist who works as a columnist and media critic at ''The Washington Post''. He was formerly the editor of the alternative weekly ''Washington City Paper''. Early life Wemple was raised in Niskayuna, New York, and a ...

,The Kavanaugh controversy meets fake news. Real fake news.
Retrieved September 26, 2018 Jennifer Rubin,

E. J. Dionne Eugene Joseph Dionne Jr. (; born April 23, 1952) is an American journalist, political commentator, and long-time op-ed columnist for ''The Washington Post''. He is also a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a profes ...

, and Avi Selk.

Personal life

Parker is married to an attorney, Sherwood M. "Woody" Cleveland, has one son and two stepsons, and resides in

Camden, South Carolina Camden is the largest city and county seat of Kershaw County, South Carolina. The population was 7,764 in the 2020 census. It is part of the Columbia, South Carolina, Metropolitan Statistical Area. Camden is the oldest inland city in South Caro ...

References

External links

Parker's column archives at ''Jewish World Review'' website

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Parker, Kathleen American political writers American columnists Writers from South Carolina Writers from Florida Florida State University alumni Living people Pulitzer Prize for Commentary winners People from Winter Haven, Florida American women columnists American women non-fiction writers Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women