FAILING UPWARD. Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post:

Women's liberation worked in ways we might never have imagined. The feminist woman of the left, who burned her bra and insisted that all hear her roar, is today a taupe-ish figure who wonders where things went wrong. The daughter she begat may well be a Republican - a gun-toting, breast-feeding supermom of several who condemns government for being a "nanny" and tells men to man up.

Adding insult to injury, she's also probably considered a "hottie" by the men who stand by admiringly, watching their women show those libs a thing or two about being a "hard-core woman."

I'm surprised Parker refrained from putting in a bit about a pigeon-chested, chinless simp taking his mannish, Birkenstock-wearing feminazi date to the Save the Whales concert but wishing he was instead with a Sarah Palin "hottie" who "got it going on" if you know what I "mean." (An editor might have taken it out, but I see no evidence that Parker has one.) Elsewhere, she tells us how the conservative hard-core hottie "carries a concealed weapon instead of a lace hankie."

Parker has a column in the Post, a Pulitzer Prize, and a TV show. I'm beginning to change my mind about Wisconsin -- maybe America's teachers have let us down.

UPDATE. Commenter Nance provides some background: "I once wrote a piece of un-fan mail to K.P. She wrote back with this jaw-dropper (which I've never seen in a column): her first husband left her when their son was an infant, to run off with 'a nationally known feminist whose name you'd recognize.'" That must have really scorched her bra.