What Does George Will Suggest That Republicans Do? - Conor Friedersdorf

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/10/what-does-george-will-suggest-that-republicans-do/247572/

I have a theory. And a George Will column affirming it would also go a long way toward addressing what ails the right. Here goes. There is no good alternative to Romney -- the Tea Party has failed to produce a credible candidate -- in large part because the conservative movement (as distinct from the political philosophy of conservatism) has been intellectually bankrupted by talk radio and cable news hosts who make millions of dollars per year dressing up catharsis as serious analysis -- and the folks who know better at National Review, the Weekly Standard, AEI, the Claremont Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and elsewhere have, with a few notable exceptions, failed to challenge the cults of Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Andrew Breitbart, and their ilk, because at one time they seemed like useful tools to fire up the base, and at some point they became sufficiently powerful that to take them on is to lose fans and money and friends within the movement and time reading hate mail and why go through all that?