Ross Douthat to the NY Times

Congrats to him.  I like Tyler Cowen's comment the best:

[Douthat] is soon to be Bill Kristol's replacement at The New York Times.  This is a Pareto improvement for everyone but The Atlantic Monthly and readers of Ross's old blog (hey, that's a lot of people!).  Let's hope that he, like Krugman, continues to blog in addition to writing his column.  In the meantime, do you all have advice or requests for Ross?

Meanwhile, the Washington Post now has Kristol.  Joy.

[Update: Drum has a useful follow-up:

[H]e is, at core, a conservative Barack Obama.

What I mean is this: like Obama, he's always careful to acknowledge the arguments of his adversaries and to take them seriously.  Like Obama, he does this overtly and deliberately.  And like Obama, this is mostly for rhetorical effect: both of them use this technique to mask the fact that they rarely change their minds.  They might listen respectfully, but after they're done they go on doing whatever they intended to do in the first place.

This isn't a criticism (I don't change my mind very often either, after all).  In fact, it makes him a more than normally worthy dissenter to the Age of Obama.  His column should make for interesting reading.

I know Obama had this trick, but I hadn't quite picked up that Douthat had as well.  It's an awesome trick really, I'm trying to pick it up myself.]