Let's peek under this rock and see what we find.

That guy up there is Ross Douthat, an editor at The Atlantic and a columnist at The New York Times. He took over for the Wrongest Man in America, Bill Kristol, a few months back.

Like Kristol, Douthat is a cultural conservative and also like Kristol, Sarah Palin makes him as giggly as a school girl.

But is he as much of an asshat as Kristol or his Times bedmate, David Brooks? I'll be honest, I've read his columns and he's failed to leave much of an impression except that he's a douche and not nearly as interesting, in a train-wreck kind of way, as Kristol was. He's much closer to the sophist dissembling of Brooks which is as boring as watching golf on TV.

So, I was intrigued when I saw this excerpt from Douthat's new book about his life at Harvard, Privilege:

"One successful foray ended on the guest bed of a high school friend's parents, with a girl who resembled a chunkier Reese Witherspoon drunkenly masticating my neck and cheeks. It had taken some time to reach this point--"Do most Harvard guys take so long to get what they want?" she had asked, pushing her tongue into my mouth. I wasn't sure what to say, but then I wasn't sure this was what I wanted. My throat was dry from too much vodka, and her breasts, spilling out of pink pajamas, threatened my ability to. I was supposed to be excited, but I was bored and somewhat disgusted with myself, with her, with the whole business... and then whatever residual enthusiasm I felt for the venture dissipated, with shocking speed, as she nibbled at my ear and whispered--'You know, I'm on the pill...'"

Bad, almost impenetrable writing aside, there's a whole lot of ick in that paragraph. Just the line, ...her breasts, spilling out of pink pajamas, threatened my ability to.

To what? Speak? Get it up? Come? Come out? What?

And the fact that she's being responsible and using birth control made him limp? What? Really? Would she have to be wearing a priest's frock before Ross could get the little bishop's attention?

Now, take another look at Ross' picture. My guess is that women who looked like Reese Witherspoon, even the chunky variety, did not often come onto our young Mr. Douthat. So what are we to make of this confessional paragraph? That Ross is a toad for describing this generous young woman in such a caddish fashion? That Ross was a virgin in college? That Ross suffered from a hair trigger and busted an egg in his jeans? That Ross doesn't swing that way but is too repressed by Catholic guilt to come out?

What?

Not long ago on another blog, a commenter trotted out the old canard about CNN standing for the Clinton News Network. I thought, Really? You still think that? Because not only was that never true, but that bit of moldy old wit is beginning to stink like Rush Limbaugh's cyst.

You know, every time I hear some jackass like this talk about the Liberal Media, I want to rub his nose in some Douthat or Kristol or Brooks. It's not because they're conservatives that I find them objectionable.

It's because they're dicks. And in Douthat's case, a limp dick at that.