A fantastic dismemberment by Marc Ambinder who is supplementing his reporting role with a sharp newish opinion edge to his wonderful blog. When you see how The Corner viciously assaulted Jim Manzi for breaking with the party line, you can also see Gingrich rounding on AEI's token non-rightist, Norm Ornstein.
The price of dissent on the right keeps going up. Bartlett and me were early canaries in the ideologically sealed mine. And recall that Manzi is a trustee of National Review and that Ornstein is about as centrist and as reasonable a commentator as you can find.
My larger point is that a party that has ceased to debate with others, that insists on retaining its own ideological view of reality, that treats all utterances as 'orthodox' or 'heretic', and that worships media stars ... well if that party doesn't nominate Palin for president, it makes no sense at all. She'll believe and say anything for power and money.