Oh No: Kathleen Parker Storms Off Set Of Parker/Spitzer

Have to mention it.

We liveblogged the first show and it was pretty clear that Kathleen Parker 1, had nothing much to say except about her One Big Topic of Sarah Palin (and nothing new there, either), and, even if you're whoring for ratings, you can't talk about her every night, can you?, and 2, was a wallflower without any command of the studio and without the sort of aggressive confidence needed to be a broadcaster.

She wilted on stage. She was a ghost. A big nothing. As bad as the show was, I have to agree with (I think) S.E. Cupp who said that Spitzer seemed more like a natural broadcaster, someone firmly in his element of talkin' on TV bark-bark-bark.

Parker seemed like, well, a second-rate writer doing her best work with her keyboard (and not very good work there, either).

The NY Post claims she stormed off the set, angry about her second banana role.

Well, dear, you have to talk to be heard, don't you? This isn't third-grade math class. The teachers aren't there to spend extra effort trying to cajole the girls to raise their hands and answer questions.

You're a big girl now, aren't you? Either get off TV or start talking on TV but don't whine that the guy doing what he's supposed to do on TV (fill up the air with words) is doing his job properly.

You need to bring a little more to the table than "dead air," darlin'.

Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker actually stormed off the set of the "Parker Spitzer" show during a pre-taping a few weeks ago -- furious that her co-host is continually allowed to take charge of their nightly CNN chat-fest, the insiders said.

Although still fuming, Parker did return to wrap up the segment, they said.
But she's angry that the show's producers are allegedly doing nothing to play up her strengths on the ailing show, the sources said.

Her "strengths," from that first show I saw, seem to be limited to asking sorority-girl party-game questions of her guests, like "When did you lose your virginity?" She didn't ask that one -- but it was that type of irrelevant, let's-have-a-giggle-party sort of question.

She wants the show to have more of that sort of thing, I guess. Sure. That'll save the show. An aging den mother asking people what color underwear they hope they'll be wearing when they die. Ratings gold.

Some staffers said Spitzer -- the hard-charging, former state attorney general who resigned as governor in 2008 after admitting to patronizing prostitutes -- thrust himself up front and center right out of the gate, leaving Parker without a chance.

Right, he should have been a wallflower and quiet as a mouse to let the other wallflower get in her wallflower mumblings.

But other insiders said the Pulitzer Prize-winning Parker has only herself to blame.

While Parker -- a conservative, nationally syndicated newspaper journalist -- is widely respected, she's no TV personality, critics said.

She's also no conservative, NY Post.

"Her weaknesses are felt internally," a source said.

Anyway, she's whining to the show's executive producer that the format has to be changed to allow the quiet, uncomfortable-on-camera mumbler more of the spotlight. Like maybe she could do a cooking segment or something.

By the way, I am writing a big, super-long post. I'm not slacking. I'm just fixated on this one post.

posted by Ace at 03:05 PM

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