One of the useful things about deciding that your political opponents are all theocrats bent on tearing up the liberal order, root and branch, is that it frees you from the pesky business of actually rebutting any of their arguments. ~Ross Douthat

One question might be: why is this the case? Why does any of us assume that wanting to tear up “the liberal order, root and branch” should merit this sort of dismissal? Ponnuru’s book, to hear Mr. Douthat tell it, does not advocate any such thing. More’s the pity. It might actually be a really interesting if it did. I am not a root-and-branch man myself, since that approach is a peculiarity of the Whig and the modern gnostic, but it seems as if it would be a fitting reply to Cromwell.