Freddie Deboer's two cents:
[H]ow am I to know that Mark Levin's book is entertainment, if it isn't explicitly such? I have my doubts about whether Levin thinks Levin's book is entertainment. I understand that, to a degree, Douthat is arguing that Levin's attitude should be irrelevant to whether his book is taken seriously. But take my outsider's position for a second: as a leftist academic, if someone cited Levin's book, and I said, "Oh, that's only entertainment, it's not to be taken seriously"... wouldn't that be exactly the elitist, condescending attitude that creates such angina on the right? Wouldn't I be confirming the idea that people on the left are unfairly dismissive of conservative argument? One might say that it's only a sin to dismiss a book if it isn't worthy of dismissal, but come on-- in the actual political conversation we have, that sort of thing wouldn't go over no matter what conservative book I was talking about. And I'm not sure that's not the way it should be.