..does it matter who's the star?

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.

Parker-Spitzer is doing Joy Behar numbers, so in the final analysis, the battle of egos is about as important as the bragging rights to being the best pumpkin chucker in the land. What really got me though, was this:

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.

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

Really? Widely respected? No one much cared what Kathleen Parker said before 2008, and when she endorsed Obama, she basically destroyed any remaining credibility she had. Apparently she recognizes the nature of her problems as well, as a comment on MSNBC Morning Joe implies:

But she has no particular coziness with Republican power structures (and in fact, as she told King, is not a registered Republican), and wrote her most famous column calling Sarah Palin “clearly out of her league” and calling for her to step down from the GOP vice presidential ticket in 2008.

That the Pulitzer Prize followed so soon afterwards was hardly a coincidence, Parker herself suggested in a call-in on “Morning Joe” the morning after her win last April. “It’s only because I’m a conservative basher that I’m now recognized after 23 years of toiling in the fields, right?”

Joining the tame conservative menagerie may have looked appealing, but the liberal-left culture only celebrates you as long as you are useful...and know your place. Just as Parker was unread for 23 years, she is now unwatched, and therefore not particularly useful. She might as well accept her role as the Spitzer sidekick, because ultimately the show is about rehabilitating his political career, not making one for a 59 year old southern belle who can't figure out what side of the tracks she wants to live on.