Wake up and smell the hatred. That’s what happened Sunday when I read Frank Rich’s “Culture of Death” op-ed. What is this piece about? It’s not a policy argument. So far as I can tell, the purpose here is to whip up hatred against Christian conservatives and direct it toward the president. I’m no mind-reader, but it’s tough to take Rich’s piece any other way.

Look, passionately felt–even angry–op-eds are perfectly legitimate. But the best polemics yoke emotion to substantive argument. Rich’s angry tail is wagging the dog here something awful. Yeah, I know. It’s supposed to be a “cultural analysis.” But cultural analysis here reduces to using pop culture references to draw lurid caricatures of people you really, really don’t like. I know the point’s been made before, but secular liberals talk about traditional Christians in ways they’d never dream of speaking about any other religion.

Does anyone remember Tom Wicker or James Reston? I’d love to see the rhetoric of these old liberal lions of the Times compared with Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, and Paul Krugman. Oh for an anger-ometer. It isn’t just a question of David Brooks and William Safire being less fire-breathing than their liberal Times colleagues. I wouldn’t be surprised if the average anger rating of an NRO piece came out below the anger level of Dowd, Rich, and Krugman. The days when conservatives were blamed by fans of Washington Week in Review for lowering the tone of political discourse are gone.

We heard all about the new liberal anger during the election. Jonathan Chait’s

“I hate Bush” piece broke the dam. The president’s victory loosed another torrent of hatred toward religious conservatives. Then the mood seemed to shift. Chastened Democrats called for more respectful treatment of the traditionally religious. Peter Beinart asked for a purge of Michael Moore-style vituperation. That moment seems far off. The way things are going, if Democrats want to moderate they’re going to have to purge The New York Times.

Fear of losing cultural influence is driving this anger. It’s always tougher to lose what you have than not to get what you want. The election and the Pope’s funeral say traditional Christians are now somewhat less culturally marginal. (This is what liberals call a “theocracy.”) The thought that they may be losing their taken-for-granted cultural centrality has unhinged the secular left. Supposedly, conservative complaints about activist judges are reaching dangerously hot rhetorical levels. Well, has anyone taken the temperature of liberal rhetoric in even the most prestigious cultural venues? Far from abandoning the tactic, mainstream Democrats seem to have adopted demonizing religious folks as their core strategy. And on college campuses, we are now only a step away from violence.