A heavy personal sacrifice

At the urging of a mutual friend, I've decided to give up Ross Douthat-bashing for Lent. I'm not repenting or recanting, but I'm just swearing off until Easter. My friend tells me that I'm undermining my standing with Respected Conservative Intellectuals by this anti-Douthat jihad.

(Yeah, it's a bad thing to be picking on a kid. The phrase "whited sepulchres" ring a bell there, buddy?)

But, OK, enough of that. I'll have to find other targets for unfair ad hominem invective to tide me over until Easter. So if any of you upstart punks out there wander into the crosshairs, don't blame me when the Mother Of All Fiskings comes down on your head. You have been warned.

And if, on Easter morning, Douthat finally looks down from the lofty heights of Fallowsium, and condescends to link a state-school alumnus, you'll know that this unprecedented occurence is a miraculous omen, perhaps even a sign of the impending Apocalypse.

O, ye of little faith!