Why I love Ross

Recall my shrill post decrying social conservatives' failure to keep Bush Republicanism in check -- as exhibited by his cronyism and response to terrorism with things like Iraq, torture, and Gitmo.

Douthat -- himself a social conservative, of course -- puts it more delicately:

No, social conservatives aren't the problem for the GOP. But they haven't been the solution, either: Too often, on matters ranging from the Iraq War to domestic policy, they've served as enablers of Republican folly, rather than as constructive critics. And calling Catholics who voted for Obama "mindless" and "stupid" is a poor substitute for building the sort of Republican Party that can attract the votes of those millions of Americans, Catholic and otherwise, who voted for the Democrats because they thought, not without reason, that George W. Bush was a disastrous president whose party should not be rewarded with a third term in the White House