A Hopeful Sign?

I just learned (via Facebook, how sad) that Ross Douthat will be taking over the mantle of "conservative op-ed columnist" for the New York Times. I'm surprised, as most of the talk I had heard was that he was too young to take on such a position and needed a couple more years of grinding it out in world of magazine/blog-journalism. I'm also quite pleased; he is a fresh voice, and no matter how much people rag on the New York Times he'll definitely be speaking from a heftier podium. He's a smart writer, not one I always agree with but at least one that makes me think carefully. Beyond that, he's fallen quickly and clearly into the reformist pile in the Republican civil war (see this post, for example, for a good Rush critique), and his general perspective on matters (again, highly disputable) is that Republicans are the natural party of the working class and should stop catering to the business elite as much (this was the apparent impetus, alas, for a brief, embarrassing period of Sarah Palin love).

Anyway, if you want to check out some of his stuff, start here, a very good take-down of last year's cinematic glut of shitty Iraq films, and then head over to his blog.