Ross Douthat to join NYT Lineup

Good stuff.  According to Marc Ambinder over at the Atlantic, Ross Douthat will be joining the New York Times' linup of regular columnists, presumably to replace Bill Kristol. 

As Ambinder describes him:

Ross is late-twenties-year-old public intellectual with the sensibility of a 60-year eminence grise, the range of a Hitchens, the pitch of a conservative AJP Taylor, the conscience of a Neibuhr and the intellectual honesty of his frequent sparring partner, Andrew Sullivan.

Although Douthat has been known to have some pretty orthodox conservative views (nothing wrong with that, of course), he's absolutely the sort of guy that a lot of people-- either in or outside the GOP-- should find reasonable.  

On the flip side, however, the right wing nut jobs will see his hiring by the NYT as confirmation of the fact that he's just another Republican in disguise.