Ross thinks that pagans are "defunct".  I had to e-mail him yesterday and let him know that we (and our gods) are alive and well.  He also seems to think that smart folk don't like Christians because, I suppose, Christians practice dogmatic Christianity.  My experience has always been that intellectuals like Christian dogma just fine (or at least as much as the next religions).  It's the holier-than-thou attitude that rankles.
And while I'm sure your friend Ross is a real nice person, one wonders exactly how his mind works.

Sanchez is not always bad, but Douthat is uniformly unimpressive.  
Right now he has a post up on Sully's site that is either spectacularly dumb or typically dishonest.
He claims that Republicans have managed to survive their repeated demonstrations of corruption (i.e. that every time they get into the WH they trash the constitution) because they always go "too far...in the pursuit national security".  That's why the American people forgive them: they know that the Republicans only have the nation's best interests at heart. And since Bush's wiretaps fit that mold, they'll be forgiven once again.  Douthat thinks the Republicans won't be called on the carpet until they are shown to have gone "too far" from purely selfish reasons.  
Here's why he's either clueless or lying:  
Fifty-three different commentators on this issue, including your esteemed self, have made it amply clear that Bush's actions did *NOTHING* to increase our ability to fight terrorism.  He did not acquire any new terror-fighting capacities that he did not already have, within the law.  His flouting of the law did not make us safer from terrorism. It simply made him less accountable to the American people. 
This was not "going too far in the interests of national security".  It was "going too far in the interests of escaping judicial and legislative oversight"; "going too far in the interest of expanding the executive into a tyranny".  National security had nothing to do with it; a warped and unconstitutional lust for power is the only motive.
By pretending that Bush's illegal wiretaps are a case of "going too far in the pursuit of national security" instead of "going too far for reasons of pure partisan power-lust", Douthat shows that he either does not understand the first thing about this case, or that he is a willing liar in the service of that same lust for power.  Have a nice time under the new monarchy, Douthat. 

Yeah Matt! Find smarter friends! Your commenters, for instance, could eat Sanchez & Douthat ALIVE!