Such rabble, all those grassroots conservatives that have infested the Republican Party. It's all that Sarah Palin's fault. She's so... common... so dumb. Well, we can't say "dumb," so let's say not very smart, not like Bill Buckley. All those flyover country conservatives aren't very smart, either. Paul Begala says so, and Paul shows up at the right parties, so...

Read Kathleen Parker's latest in the Washington Post: "The Palinization of the GOP." Parker used to write for National Review. Then she graduated to the Washington Post. Going there, Parker's worldview gloriously expanded. Parker's opinions are just so sophisticated now, so original.

Nope, Parker would never parrot a Democrat hack like Paul Begala. Nope, she'd never regurgitate the tired line that global warming skeptics are anti-science. Nope, Parker would never dis those who think there's a reasonable place for God in the public square. Nope, Parker would never take a shot at Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts. Nope, she most certainly wouldn't trash Main Street and workaday conservatives as really not bright.

Nope, not Kathleen Parker, whose bold, unique slants do so much to enlighten readers about the rising popular conservative movement that's just begun to flex its muscles and develop a strong voice in the old, reactionary, played-out establishment Republican Party. Establishment GOP, good; insurgent grassroots conservatism, bad.

Never mind that there's a solid argument to make that the Tea Party movement echoes the Jacksonian uprising of the early 1800s. Those Jacksonian Democrats were louts, too; they had no respect for the elites of the day. Jacksonian Democrats' boots were muddy, and they swilled whiskey. Heavens, where were their manners? They practiced such common trades. What lady or gentleman would keep their company? And that Andy Jackson, what an intellectual lightweight!

And we know Bill Buckley wouldn't approve the Tea Party, or the rising legions of grassroots conservatives generally. We know this about Buckley because having worked for National Review, Parker evidently has license to channel the late NR publisher. Is this an NR alumnus privilege or something?

Parker's opinions are representative of establishmentarians' reaction to a grassroots conservative movement that they 1) may not understand very well; 2) disdain because they're worldviews and values are so at odds; 3) feel threatened by - as well they should.

Keep Kathleen Parker before you, she who trumpets for the American establishment. It's good to keep tabs on the ever evolving, wickedly smart, amazingly sophisticated perceptions of the very people grassroots conservatives need to defeat.