I kind of feel for Kathleen Parker. She often does something I admire. Rather than unfailingly using her prime space on the Washington Post opinion page to spew right-wing talking points, she frequently uses the space to try to introduce a modicum of sense into right-wing discourse. But her column today is a prime example of the compromises she feels she must make to maintain enough conservative credentials to be heard at all. The headline of her piece (which was probably not chosen by her) is The Palinization of the GOP. She discusses the Republican Party’s recent drift towards religious dogma and away from respect for scientific inquiry. She sticks up for Jon Huntsman who had the temerity to question the right’s turn toward The Stupid. It’s a commendable column…until the end.

Here’s her unfortunate summary:

It’s safe to say that nobody knows every detail of every country, but Libya isn’t just any country and the United States did not play a minor role in helping Libyans liberate themselves from the 40-year tyranny of Moammar Gaddafi. But [Herman] Cain is banking on the hope that GOP contempt for smarty-pants, gotcha journalists will outweigh concerns that he may be out of his league.

He may be right. Despite his difficulties, Cain is still polling in the top tier, just behind Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Even so, there are signs that the GOP is recognizing its weaknesses and is ready to play smarter. To wit: The sudden surge of Gingrich, who, whatever his flaws and despite the weight of his considerable baggage, is no intellectual slouch. Whether he can pull off a victory in Iowa remains to be seen, but a populist professor — a bombastic smarty-pants Republicans can call their own — may be just the ticket.

Whatever you might say about Newt Gingrich, he is no intellectual slouch. He might be just the ticket.

And, with that, she ruined every decent thing she had said in the preceding paragraphs. Here is what Gingrich is currently doing in the intellectual sphere:

Newt Gingrich, speaking at Harvard’s Kennedy School yesterday, brings us one of the more esoteric solutions to the economic mobility question we’ve ever heard: “Get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school.” Empowering America’s downtrodden youth and scoring a point against unionized labor — seems like a winning Republican strategy. “The kids would actually do work,” Gingrich told his audience, “they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.” Become a teenage janitor and end up in the middle class — really?

I’m not going to spend what’s left of my Saturday night compiling a list of idiotic anti-intellectual Gingrichisms. He typically says six impossible things before breakfast. And then he contradicts himself after his lunch. Intellectual people don’t do that. The best you can say for Gingrich is that he makes an effort to come up with innovative ideas and hasn’t been afraid in the past to suggest policies that contradict Republican orthodoxy. So, for example, he spent much of the last decade arguing (for money) that people ought to be compelled to buy private for-profit health insurance. Should I give him credit for his intellectual rigor now that he thinks any such policy is the equivalent of setting the Gestapo loose on the Heartland?

If the price you have to pay to stay relevant in Republican circles is that you have to pretend that Newt Gingrich is a deep thinker then I think the price just isn’t worth paying. It’s time for Ms. Parker to consider the wisdom of Groucho Marx.

“I would not join any club that would have someone like me for a member.”

Or something like that.