"My idea for it was to help show — not tell — that there’s a lot more diversity on the right than the mainstream media and the left pretend. Particularly after years of Clinton and in the early days of the Bush administration a lot of commentators assumed an ideological and intellectual homogeneity on the right that I don’t think ever existed. If you were anti-Clinton or, later, pro-Bush, you were a rightwinger and that’s all people needed to know about you. I don’t think that’s the case nearly as much anymore. I don’t think the Corner is responsible for clearing the air, but we helped play our part."

Well, The Corner---like the Republican Party---has certainly demonstrated a lot of people called conservatives have little in common ideologically. Those of us who do indeed believe what conservatives commonly believe---limited government, strong defense, free markets, strong families, a merciful yet just God to whom we shall all have to answer---would argue that The Corner needs to be swept.

Perhaps it would be useful to reproduce the first day of The Corner, Jonah, that we might have a side-by-side comparison of where NRO was ten years ago vs today. I suspect it would look rather like Easter Mass in Latin alongside Woodstock to conservative eyes.

As long as you little RINO fish want to congregate in this barrel, David, I'll keep a round in the chamber.

Feel free to head to Frum Forum---whoops, I mean The Huffington Post---if you're averse to buckshot.

Gee, David, I don't know---maybe you're wishy-washy, milquetoasty, slaughter-pixels-to-say-nothing is just somehow endemic to RINOs.

Contrary to your claims, political parties DO in fact present themselves as "set things"---this is what the platform debate is about each cycle. Platforms change over time but it's a slow evolution. Parties are the vessels into which ideology is poured to determine which personnel and policies will run the government in the coming years.

RINOs are RINOs because they espouse that which directly contradicts the time-honored principles of the party they leech off of. The Republican Party is the party of middle-class conservatism---has been for a generation and more. The policies vary but the mandate remains. The GOP is therefore OUR party---the base owns it through virtue of votes and money. If we withold either, no RINO in the world can get elected.

So how is it that the GOP Establishment is comprised of so few who share the principles and values of the Republican base?

Well, the answer to that is simple and sad: because we conservatives have been far too willing to compromise for the sake of promised electoral gains in the short term and far too busy living productive lives to waste them flailing away as party hacks. Few of us want to live where the party hacks live in that Douthat Corridor Steyn invoked. We prefer to be left alone, which means the meddling bureaucrat sorts get the political patronage jobs in the GOP by default.

But every now and again we rise up and remind these hacks who is in charge and just how fragile their authority is.

It's times like this where people like you get the vapors and go wobbly. It's not matter---you aren't missed anyway.

Just reread your posts to see what whiny, milquetoasty, slaughter-pixels-to-say-nothing means, David. Although I probably just violated several human rights in asking you to read your own nonsense.

Here's a hint regarding parties: if the party which opposes yours had a platform last election cycle with which you largely agree, and you are a Republican, you can proudly bear the RINO label. That's what it means. If you read the party platform of the Republican Party circa 1860 and rather wish the current platform were more like it, you are a conservative. And if you don't know what a platform is or means, you are David.

I have a sneaking feeling you've never served in the military, David. Had you done, you'd have a great example to hand of how an Establishment can indeed be far out of touch and indeed hold views contrary to those of the wider organization. That Establishment was generally known as "The Pentagon" in layman's terms, but bore a variety of more colorful sobriquet's that NRO's pottymouth filter won't allow.

Perhaps you can reread my earlier response slowly and get an idea as to how this came to be in the Republican Party.

As for "finding a party which does" reflect my views, I have---I joined the Tea Party. If a RINO sits atop the GOP ticket this time around, I'll follow it up by changing my voter registration to "independent", whereupon I will bask in the glow of suddenly having my vote coveted by the brie-eaters who currently run the Republican Party since the mere act of becoming an Independent makes one a political savant and delightful company in their eyes.

Sorry King. That Jobs quip came to mind and seemed so apropos for the G-file

Yes, Kathryn's shepherding of The Corner was, in most ways, very much for the better. But you give the game away.

"Not just about politics and philosophy but about TV shows, sports, and the best kind of cocktail nut (cashews, obviously)."

Not to belittle the wonderful, soft meat of the mighty delicious cashew, but ... STAR TREK BAN. So deeply antithetical to the spirit of The Corner.

Agreed. I know to breeze past any "signed" Corner posts. If I wanted to read op-eds, I'd read the paper. I want to read what *NRO* thinks.

Also agree - I skip over any posts by officeholders, even someone like Rubio. These are typically boilerplate, and not what the Corner is about.

Even worse is allowing special interest hacks to post.

This isn't a comment thread. It's more like the 3rd-grade Artists display at the local post office. You people should study online comments. Either do it right, or don't do it at all.