World Still Unsure How Marc Ambinder Feels About Ross Douthat

How are the Washington journalists responding to the selection of new NYT op-ed columnist Ross Douthat? The Atlantic 's Marc Ambinder, for one, has mixed feelings: "Ross is a 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... Bill Kristol was just a mistake, but boy, talk about the rebound: I think Ross is the sharpest, most innovative heterodox thinker of his generation, left or right... As the chairman of the Atlantic would say, Ross is in his vertical hour. And now, one of the greatest minds in the country has one of the world's best megaphones." He concludes that Ross Douthat is best read while in the nude. [ Marc Ambinder ]