Hugh Hewitt jumps the shark..

Would a conservative write an opinion piece for the NEW YORK TIMES? Maybe. But would it include this line?

"This triumph of the conservative punditocracy will have lasting consequences, and I hope my fears are misplaced."

You know, for a guy who's supposedly a right-leaning talk show radio host (a job that is quintessentially for conservative pundits), that quoted sentence is incredibly ELITIST. Fears of a conservative punditocracy? Who the hell in their right mind would fear that? I guess only people like Hewitt are allowed to talk. And this is the man who argued that opposing Miers was wrong because it was elitist. Pot. Kettle. Black.

Moreover, the NYT piece he writes drips with sanctimonious false outrage that the opposition to Miers was.... mean-spirited. It's like suddenly Hewitt has adopted all of the talking points of the left. The fact remains, Miers was seen as unqualified by many, but even worse, she had no prior experience in constitituional jurisprudence and there was no evidence at all she would be an originalist/textualist like Scalia. In fact, there were multiple indications she'd be a wishy-washy liberal.

Hewitt has officially jumped the shark.

This Washington Post article is pretty fair in describing the broad-based opposition to Miers. And Jonathan Adler in NRO's Bench Memos deconstructs Hewitt's other complaints.

I think it's wise to move on, not to gloat, and to get onto the business of confirming an originalist, conservative judge. But we should do well to remember that politics is merely a means to an end. People like Hewitt, who value power and appearance over principles and substance, are useless because when push comes to shove, they abandon the fight. Need we any more testiment to that than the fact that now he's bashing conservative pundits in the friggin' New York Times?