"(Robert M.) Parker is God’s fool for associating with and trusting in some of the people that he has over the years." - Poster Bill Klapp on Mike Steinberger's Wine Diarist

* * * * *

"That, too, is now a dead horse in my view, because the Wine Advocate has paid the price, and will continue to pay the price, for its ethical foibles as Bob Parker continues to shoot himself in the foot in a highly public manner, with his weapon of choice being his mouth, and his ammunition being myopia and self-righteousness. When the relevant facts are all out, I am convinced that we will learn that Parker, even more than Miller, has once again been had by a hustler, Pancho Campo. 

Parker is God’s fool for associating with and trusting in some of the people that he has over the years: Rodenstock, Royal Wine’s “sexy boys”, Oliveros and Sokolin, Hanna Agostini and now Campo. Then there are his professional and administrative missteps and shortcomings: the Faiveley lawsuit and the incompetence of his Burgundy work, and the hiring of Rovani, Thomases and Miller. Time and again, I come back to a pithy few sentences from William Langewiesche’s 2000 Atlantic Monthly article, “The Million-Dollar Nose”, which, in what I see as the supreme irony, is an integral part of Parker’s biography on his website: 

“Parker’s…mother, who handles the office mail, has a different approach. She is said to be tough and unimpressed. One afternoon Parker, in a self-pitying mood, mentioned to her that for years he had received only letters of complaint. She fixed him with a stare and said, “That’s because they’re the only ones I’ve let you see.” Her instincts were probably good. Parker seems to have trouble distinguishing friends from sycophants, and he sets too much store by the compliments he receives.”-- Poster Bill Klapp Dec. 7, 2011 on Mike Steinberger's The Wine Diarist (click on this link to read the rest of Klapp's excellent response to a post by David Schildknecht of The Wine Advocate).