Why I enjoy reading Conor Friedersdorf:

That’s why I am sympathetic to the “conservative dissidents,” despite my many policy differences with them. Unlike the base, I don’t think politicians who are squishy on substance did in Republicans. I think what brought down the right is a corrupt conservative movement, without insufficient capacity for constructive criticism, and beset by heretic hunters who denounced anyone engaged in critical thinking. Long live the dissidents. Long live debates. Long live partisan and ideological disloyalty if it means routing out corruption.

He is the best of the swelling crop of I-am-a-conservative-but-the republican-party-sucks writers but he has hot competition from Daniel Larison

Republicans object to so many irrelevant things that Obama does and they treat absolutely everything as some supreme, unpardonable error that it is impossible to take any of their criticism seriously.

and Bruce Bartlett.

Q. Do you think that there is a fundamental problem with the Republican economic philosophies that are currently being put forth or do you think the Republicans are just being anti-Obama administration in order to gain political capital? – Trevor L

A. I think the Republican Party is brain-dead. It stands for one thing and one thing only – being against whatever the Democrats are for and regaining political power by whatever means necessary. The idea that the G.O.P. is the party of ideas is laughable.