I always enjoy the missives I receive from GOPUSA, where the nuttiest of wingnuts go for affirmation. Today's featured piece is a broadside by freelance columnist Doug Patton against Timesman David Brooks' Friday column on how Sarah Palin is but the latest front in Republicians' burgeoning war against ideas. My favorite bit is when Patton explains how Brooks and his uppity ilk stand on the far side of a great "spiritual" gulf:
Those of us who believe in fighting for the defense of life and--dare I say it?--for the preservation of normal, traditional, monogamous human sexual relationships do so out of a belief that someone much greater and wiser than we are, namely the Creator of the Universe, has said this is how we should live. This is not an arbitrary position we have taken in order to deny "reproductive rights" to women or "equal rights" to homosexuals. These are strongly held views given to believers by God, universal truths, if you will. No religious tradition in the world believes in killing babies or in homosexual marriage.
There is no Republican aversion to intellectualism, contends Patton:
What sets conservatives, and by extension the GOP, apart is that we have always encouraged vigorous debate and the civil discourse necessary for the continuation of this American experiment. It is the foundation of our republic and the catalyst to our best ideas. But we succeed in our intellectual pursuits only because they stand firmly on the solid rock of our morality, our spirituality and our admission of and submission to the God that grants our souls the right to breathe.
Indeed, he notes, "One need only read Jonah Goldberg, Mark Steyn or Christopher Buckley to know that conservative intellectualism is alive and well."
Of course, if one were to read Christopher Buckley, one might have noticed that he just endorsed Barack Obama, in no small part because of the McCain campaign's shameless selection of Palin.
Oops. Looks like Buckley now stands squarely on the wrong side of that spiritual gulf. Things must be starting to get lonely on the Right side.
--Michelle Cottle