Kathleen Parker is sorry to see her go. It’s a sweet column, but I can’t say I share the sentiment.

Life is not a matter of left and right, but of something in between, and this is where Ellen has spent most of her time. Instead of drawing lines in the sand, she crafted sand castles of wit and charm. Her gift was proffering poignancy without pique in a snark-free zone.
Even if one disagreed with her conclusions, Ellen offered reasoned arguments that often pierced the armor of our own defenses.

My own recollection from reading her over many years is that Goodman was predictably liberal on just about everything, and rarely offered any arguments at all. I’m afraid Joseph Sobran had it right when he reviewed one of Goodman’s books for NR back in 1986:

Among columnists, Ellen Goodman covers a unique beat: Ellen Goodman. Ostensibly, the pieces in Keeping in Touch are about topics as diverse as Raisa Gorbachev, Vanessa Williams, Liz Taylor, Doris Lessing, Sally Ride, Phyllis Schlafly, Baby Fae, Nancy Reagan, Maureen Reagan, and Johnny Carson’s divorce. But they all seem to come back home to Ellen Goodman.
A piece on computers tells you little about computers, but much (which you might have guessed) about how Ellen Goodman feels about computers. When Sir Philip Sidney said, “Fool, look in thy heart and write,” she was listening: “I confess . . . I suspect . . . Frankly, I . . . I am not surprised . . . I guess . . . I wonder . . . I hope . . . I feel, momentarily, relieved . . . I wish . . . I never expected . . . I long for the old days . . . I didn’t always feel this way . . . I have no illusions . . . I have today a sense of some universal pulsation. . .”
Far be it from me to disparage the personal touch, but just try watching someone get in touch with her feelings for 313 pages. We all have to begin with what we know, but even Descartes got out of the starting blocks after a while.