Ross Douthat to Opine for The New York Times

Marc Ambinder has the big media news: Ross Douthat, age 29, will replace Bill Kristol as a columnist for The New York Times.

Douthat’s book “Grand New Party,” which he co-wrote with Reihan Salam, is a good guide to his thinking and influence. He is not, like Kristol, a recovering partisan operative, and he is not, like the average CPAC speaker, of the belief that conservatism is an unstoppable force that will win every battle as long as it’s not watered down.

From his blog this week:

American public opinion has moved leftward with the Clintonites, and under the influence of the same trends and events – from the mounting health-care crisis to the post-Clinton return of wage stagnation to the current financial debacle. And this is what’s missing from the conservative attacks on Obama’s radicalism – a recognition that the political landscape has shifted dramatically since the days when Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich were struggling over the American center, and that in the absence of a conservatism that’s responsive to the changing situation, yesterday’s radicalism can start to look a lot like today’s common sense.

With Douthat and David Brooks, The Times will host two of the most pragmatic conservative intellectuals around, two people often attacked by the Limbaugh wing of the party.