A point I've been trying to sneak up on gradually is the Marineris-scale gap between your vision of a conservative citizen-scholar in the mold of William F. Buckley, and the entirely gut-driven tea party movement that now represents the mainstream of conservatism.
You keep trying to square the circle and portray tea partiers as just as rational and devoted to Pure Logic as you, but anyone who's actually looked into the movment can tell you that that's Pure Nonsense.
As one of the essays portrays it, it's Buckley versus the Birchers all over again.
In that gap is your saving grace. You loudly declaim that your style is "fact-driven", just like Frum, so perhaps denouncing Frum and defending gut-driven conservatism by parroting their shrieking isn't your strongest move.
I've pressed you to take a stand on the tea party movment to give you the opportunity to make the gap clear. You've responded by not aligning yourself with them explicitly, but nevertheless defending them, which is a bit...lame. Reflexive obfuscation gets old.
Are you a Bircher or a Buckley?
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Let me take a stab at it
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