Okay, Ramesh, I’ll bite. In a desperate attempt to keep “the great right-wing pundit war” going, let me say I didn’t think the Ross Douthat post was that good. Toward the end, he writes:

If you want Sarah Palin as your standard-bearer, you need a [David] Brooks, or someone like him, at the table when her speeches are being written and her policy positions are being hashed out. You need elites, and you especially need elites who work and live outside the conservative cocoon.

That last bit reminds me of the apocryphal London newspaper headline “Fog In Channel. Continent Cut Off.” Who’s in which cocoon depends on where you’re looking from. But, that aside, I’d say the GOP needs elites who work and live outside the elite cocoon – or what Mr Douthat calls “the DC/NY corridor“.

As for the first bit, Peggy Noonan complains that she doesn’t know what Sarah Palin believes, and Ross Douthat thinks she needs David Brooks as her speechwriter. Well, I no longer know what David Brooks believes. Last I heard from him was on the Charlie Rose post-debate show when he was gushing that it was like being on a hiking trip and looking out the tent every morning and being reassured that the mountain is always there and Barack is like the mountain: he’s always there. Maybe he can sharpen it up for the book proposal.

More on “cocoons” in a moment.