Ross Douthat's latest post is rather stunning, considering its source. Lacking the national profile of a David Brooks or George Will as the Liberal's Favorite Conservative, he's quietly plowed a steady, unnoticed furrow this last year, pointing to the upcoming GOP disaster all year with grace and insights.

But now he's had it. Specifically mentioning Victor Davis Hanson, Mark Steyn, and Mark Levin, he questions the logic of casting out apostates from a party too beholden to an orthodoxy that can no longer attract the young, gays, women, blacks, and military families:

Even if Brooks and Noonan and Buckley and Dreher and Kathleen Parker and David Frum and Heather Mac Donald and Bruce Bartlett and George Will and on and on - note the ideological diversity in the ranks of conservatives who aren't Helping The Team these days - are all just snobs and careerists who quit or cavil or cover their asses when the going gets tough and their "seat at the table" is threatened, an American conservative movement that consists entirely of those pundits with the rock-hard testicular fortitude required to never take sides against the family seems like a pretty small tent at this point. And if I were Hanson or Levin or Steyn I'd be devoting a little less time to ritual denunciations of heretics and RINOs, and at least a little more time to figuring out how to build the sort of ship that will make the rats of the DC/NY corridor want to scramble back on board, however much it makes you sick to have them back.

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum's in the same snit, after a series of posts questioning Sarah Palin's qualifications and John McCain's sanity:

I receive emails from readers every day who tell me that the only possible motive I could have for expressing doubts about the McCain ticket is my desire to attend cocktail parties, appear on TV, apply for a job in the Obama administration etc. Now I see this line of accusation appearing in the Corner too.

Let's develop this thought a little. Suppose it were true? Suppose I were indeed a venal, light-minded chaser after television appearances and social invitations. What difference would it make?

Do my correspondents (and now my Corner colleagues) truly believe that - but for my pitiful media and social ambitions - nobody in America would have noticed that Sarah Palin cannot speak three coherent consecutive words about finance or economics?

I'm tempted to say, "Eat me." But every political party faces a moment of similar crisis: the Democrats did after the 1980, 1984, and 1988 presidential elections. The Dems had their version of crackpots like this, the paranoia exposed when you teeter on the edge of defeat. The wilderness can be refreshing.