has now taken to posting readers’ letters to the Corner on his own site. Here’s how the letter he has posted starts: “Mr. Hewitt, I’m become so frustrated with the folks at NRO that I sent them this letter to the editor. There is no reason to think they’ll publish or post it. I’m looking for another outlet.” Right: Because we never, ever post comments criticizing NRO! Never. Except when we do, and Hewitt takes it as evidence that the conservative masses are against us.

The reader goes on to suggest that conservatives have a general tendency to express feelings of betrayal whenever the president does something they dislike, even when the president is merely doing something that he campaigned on. He mentions No Child Left Behind, immigration, and spending. It’s a reasonable point–but it’s also one that has been made about a thousand times on NRO. It is true that, to my knowledge, nobody here has said, as the reader does, that Bush “hasn’t backed down from a single commitment”–since it isn’t true. (He did, for example, say he would veto McCain-Feingold.) He writes, “Here’s a 5 cent psychiatric assessment. Conservatives seem to be focused on Bush’s alleged fiscal recklessness out of understandable guilt over not being more helpful in reforming Social Security.” With the exception of the Wall Street Journal, NR did more than any other conservative voice in the media–certainly including Hewitt–to support Social Security reform. The letter writer ends by questioning whether conservative writers have any “honor”–a shabby, nasty charge he does next to nothing to support.

What point Hewitt thinks he is making by posting this note–other than that every publication gets silly letters to the editor–is beyond me. But then, I’m not in the business of making 5 cent psychiatric diagnoses.