Andrew Sullivan asks why Rich Lowry and Charles Krauthammer are suddenly up in arms about the increasingly dogmatic strain of religious conservatism in the Republican Party:
It's amazing to me to watch Rich Lowry and Charles Krauthammer begin to panic at the signs of Christianism taking over the Republican party. Where, one wonders, have they been for the past decade? They have long pooh-poohed those of us who have been warning about this for a long time, while cozying up to Christianists for cynical or instrumental reasons. But now they want to draw the line. Alas, it's too late, I think, for Charles to urge an openness toward atheism or non-religion in a party remade on explicitly religious grounds by Bush and Rove. Who was it, after all, who cited Jesus Christ as the most influential "philosopher" in his life as part of his electoral strategy? Who reorganized his party to base it on churches? The man whom Krauthammer eagerly supported in two consecutive elections.
I don't know about Lowry and Krauthammer, but isn't the general explanation that conservative pundits tend to hold back on criticizing the GOP except when there's a competitive presidential primary? For instance, as Matt Welch reminds us in McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol and David Brooks backed John McCain in 1999-2000, but when he lost, they fell in line behind Bush and have been there ever since. I'd expect Lowry and Krauthammer to do the same thing.
Also, it's particularly safe to use Huckabee as the vehicle for criticizing the GOP's religious turn because a backlash is underway and he has little elite support on the right.
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