This strikes me as a largely fruitless path to go down. But if you’re now saying that disparaging talk radio — which I am not doing — is of a piece with looking down your nose at Ronald Reagan, that’s ridiculous. If you’re saying that you’re not a fan of talk raido, you are of necessity disparaging all talk radio hosts, that’s not true either. I’m not a huge fan of talk radio, but I like a great many talk radio hosts, including you and Rush. What Andy is slamming, I think it is clear, is the tendency of movement conservatism to have become an industry rather than an intellectual school. I think Ramesh makes numerous excellent points in response to this objection, even as he concedes it’s a reality (though not the whole of it). Having slept on it and noodled it a bit more, I’m inclined to think Andy’s nostalgia is a bit overdone, but I think his diagnosis is still on target.

Where I think Ferguson was most conspicuously silent was on the role of Fox News, owned by the patron of the Weekly Standard. Perhaps his mention of Sean Hannity was an attempt at full disclosure of a kind. As for Sean himself, I like him a lot. But I doubt he would refute he is a popularizer, and a gifted one, and not one of the great scholars of the 20th century. Andy’s point was that Hannity is no Harry Jaffa or Willmoore Kendall, an assertion I think no informed person can or would dispute. The debate, engaged by Douthat, Ramesh and the Powerline guys is whether or not that is a sign of progress. I think it’s a perfectly open question as to whether we need more Hannitys or more Kendalls (I suspect one Jaffa is enough). Conservatism carries less of a burden to come up with new ideas, after all. People who can explain conservatism to the public may indeed be more useful (something Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh were both brilliant at).

And I should note, given (the early) Kendall’s “Appalachians-to-the-Rockies” populism my guess is even Kendall himself would see this as an open question.