Douthat's fears that the GOP will continue its irresponsibility:
[A]s I said to Weigel, my biggest worry is that the G.O.P. is basically taking one of the insights from “Grand New Party” that even the Republican base has grown to love big government and running with it in a cynical, rather than a constructive direction, by offering rhetorical promises to cut government joined to specific pledges to protect the most expensive sections of the welfare state. If the Tea Party’s fervor succeeds in electing a group of politicians who are serious about entitlement reform, then it will have done both the country and conservatism a service. But if it just produces a lot of posturing about small government joined to yet more fiscal irresponsibility … well, then I hope the same people who regarded “Grand New Party” as a fatal compromise with statism will hold the Tea Party to same high standard.
You bet the Dish will - and has. I wish we had a sane, responsible, fiscally conservative GOP in this country - one that could make a deal with a pragmatic Democratic president to resolve long-term debt before it is too late (if it isn't already). But it appears we don't. When Rand Paul is criticizing even minor cuts in Medicare, we are not talking about Cameron-style realism.