[6] Parker's career in journalism began in 1977, when she was hired to cover Hanahan, Goose Creek and Moncks Corner by the now-defunct Charleston Evening Post.

[4] She has written for several magazines, including The Weekly Standard, Time, Town & Country, Cosmopolitan, and Fortune Small Business.

[15] The doppelgänger theory was criticized by other Washington Post columnists, such as Max Boot,[16] Erik Wemple,[17][18] Jennifer Rubin, E. J. Dionne, and Avi Selk.

[19][20][21] Parker wrote about the April 2019 arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in the Embassy of Ecuador, London, comparing him unfavorably to the "historic act of bravery" by Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers about American government lies in the Vietnam War.

[22] Parker is married to an attorney, Sherwood M. "Woody" Cleveland, has one son and two stepsons, and resides in Camden, South Carolina.