I understand your point and sentiment-but I find Dionne shallow-I'll elaborate. (Classifying E.J. Dionne as "left-leaning" sells him short. Lets call him what he is, a raging leftist trying to hide as a sort of not raging sort of not leftist.)
You seem to bemoan the lack of intellectual rigor in leading elements of both the Republican party and the conservative movement, two seperate but often aligned forces. Intellectual movements, like Buckley-style conservatism, obviously need vigorous intellectual forces to develop themselves over time. Political parties can get by without that, although it certainly can help from time to time. So Sarah Palin can address a crowd, give speeches and espouse Republican ideas and grow into a party leader without being an intellectual one. Most party leaders don't have a strong technical grasp of the roots of conservative political thought, because they are reaping the benefits of intellectual work done before them. Palin benefits from Buckley's years of work. Buckley also benefits from Palin, as she is a tool to spread many of his ideas. This symbiosis has been the key for Republican politics since Reagan.
Limbaugh/Hannity are entertainers. They readily espouse Republican and often conservative viewpoints to inform and entertain their audiences. They are not intellectual leaders, they don't want to be seen as such. Rush is more of a signal of the direction of our society then it is upon conservative politics per se.
Your example of Peter Lawler implies an ideological purity or quest for purity that simply does not exist in contemporary politics or the Republican party. Certainly a large bulk of Republicans/conservatives are pro-life, and perhaps some perspective was needed for Lawler's audience. I can't see how that projects onto the movement as a whole, however. The problems you are referring to are not inconsequential, and they are not wholly untrue. But they are the problems that come with electoral success. And the success that the conversative movement has had at the ballot box has led to these type of problems, for good or ill.
Ensconsed in your Buffalo'ed frozen ivory tower, you may naturally think that anti-intellectualism is always bad-but I see a place for it, especially in electoral politics. Is Sarah Palin, at least in part, anti-intellectual? I think she is-and I like it. Do political parties and movements need intellectuals? No doubt about it-else they end up like Whigs. But they also need a willingness to accept certain ideas as fixed and use those ideas to plow through. You see what I am getting at? Palin would do that-torpedoes be damned! In this way, I think anti-intellectualism can be good, because it removes damaging encumberences and shows a sense of purpose most intellectuals suck at.
If you are concerned with the collusion of the Republicans and conservatives ultimately weakening, or even gutting, the conservative movement-I'm with you. But it has to be done to achieve any kind of real impact. The work is just beginning-conservatives have pulled this party from a place of ideological nowhere to something resembling coherence. I like it-and I think there is plenty of more work to be done. Is Rush to answer to the future success of the conservative movement? Not really-because he is more of a Republican operative than a conservative intellectual. Dionne doesn't get it- I find his understanding of American politics to be shockingly shallow given all his years in the business. Conservatives came from nowhere to be a primary force in Republican politics. Did we lose ourselves a bit along the way? Maybe-but we gained a lot too-and to my mind we can win back anything we lost.
David Brooks is fine with me-he is entitled to his opinions about the current nature of conservative politics. But he also falls victim to making exceptionally shallow and inane observations. Palin doesn't seen to pass Noonan's "smart test". I guess all I would say to that is bug off Noonan, you're wrong on this one. I am far more concerned about Obama's raging leftism than whether or not it took Palin 10 seconds to explain the nebulous Bush Doctrine.
Do I love Palin? Not really-I am not excited about a woman in the White House to be frank, and she has had some trouble with questions she ought not to have. But most of the criticism of her has been ridiculous. Well, I ought not conflate that with your original point-suffice to say that the conservative movement will produce another towering intellectual figure or two, and the Republican party will make another 20 Palins or Limbaughs-let's see if they can work together.
