Mickey [Kaus] now spends his energies primarily defending the furthest extremes of right-wing culture. ~Andrew Sullivan

It is true that Mickey Kaus will defend Ann Coulter, much to the aggravation of his fellow liberals, but it is exceedingly difficult to credit that he “primarily” works on defending the extremes of “right-wing culture.”  I have watched a fair number of his exchanges on bloggingheads, and for someone supposedly preoccupied with vindicating right-wingers he spends remarkably little time talking about them.  First of all, he probably wouldn’t even be familiar with what those extremes are, or if he were familiar with them he would probably strongly disagree with them.  What did Kaus do that made Sullivan flip out (again)?  He said that Paul Krugman made an unconvincing argument–specifically about the alleged “Christian hack” problem in the federal government generally and the Justice Department specifically.  In essence, Krugman cites a few Christians serving at Justice and NASA who act like, well, Christians.  They disapprove of Lawrence v. Texas (as would any decent 10th Amendment supporter)!  They cite Scripture!  They think that a cosmological theory is a cosmological…theory!  For their next trick, they might start praying.  These were the best Krugman could come up with? 

The first one about Lawrence is bound to set Sullivan off, and probably not because he believes that the Court’s ruling was carefully argued and impeccably supported by precedent.  There is not one instance in the Krugman column that demonstrates that the people in question were actually unqualified for their positions or that they gave their religion priority over what their work required–unless you believe, as Krugman does, that disagreeing with the Lawrence decision more than any other in the last 20 years (personally, I would have gone with either Casey or Kelo) is automatically proof of your lack of qualification for a job in the Justice Department.  But to acknowledge this wouldn’t back up Sullivan’s far-fetched story that “the Christianists are coming!”  So he has to go into overdrive and declare that Kaus is carrying water for Christianists…because that makes a lot of sense.  Then again, this is the guy who thought that The Weekly Standard existed to promote religious fundamentalism.

What does Kaus actually say?  He wrote:

I’m not saying theocratic incompetents from the “700 Club” aren’t fanning out through the government. Maybe they are. I’m saying Paul Krugman is not convincing on this issue.  He doesn’t even seem to be trying to be convincing. Why should he try? There’s always been a market for anti-hick editorializing in the New York Times, especially anti-Southern-hick editorializing….Krugman’s select Times readers aren’t exactly going to demand rigor when it comes to attacking Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell.

Indeed.  We saw much the same thing in The New York Times Magazine just a little while ago when Gary Rosen, editor of Commentary, took the easy route in mocking religious conservatives, praising the atheist-cons who were rebelling against them and approving of the divorcees and secular men leading the Republican pack at the time, reserving especially unfounded insults (“authoritarian bullies”) for the Concerned Women of America. 

Now, it’s true that Larry Kudlow, for instance, has made an entire career out of saying that Paul Krugman makes unconvincing arguments (I exaggerate a little), but saying that Paul Krugman isn’t making a very good argument is a tiny bit different from “primarily” focusing on “defending the furthest extremes of right-wing culture.”