Kathleen and Nikki: Together at Last

It's good to see that Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker seems to have finally gotten past her three-decade-plus crush on the Family Bush. It's NOT so good to see that the latest object of her admiration is even crazier than the previous one. In case you missed her column yesterday, Parker's new crush appears to be Nikki Haley, Governor of South Carolina, and newly-touted GOP VP Candidate.

Really?

In trying to protect her old-time Republican party from the Nut Crowd (as she and fellow Washington Post conservative columnist Michael Gerson have been working feverishly to do), Parker probably thinks she has landed in safe territory with Nikki Haley.

Really?

This is the woman who won all sorts of accolades this summer when she (finally) called for and lead the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state house property – after four and a half years in office. And only after the murder of nine African Americans in a Charleston church by a Radical Christian Terrorist.

Let's be clear: It took the murder of these nine people for Haley to – on the surface – come to realize that the Confederate flag was still a sign of racism and a dangerous flashpoint.

And Kathleen Parker thinks this is okay.

Really?

Parker claims that Haley has been "changed by her time in office." You bet she has. She's suddenly realized that unlike South Carolina, the nation as a whole won't tolerate a racist in leadership.

Haley likes to tout her immigrant roots, but is too politically savvy, of course, to use her given first name. (She was born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa.) She no doubt understands the thinking in South Carolina and throughout much of the Republican Party – "Indian descent? Why, she must be a Muslim!"

Maybe Haley understands the still-prevalent racism in this country all too well.