Tim, you have become a first-rate interviewer. You let him speak on topics that allowed him to use his analytical chops. He's no dummy. But you also challenged him very clearly, respectfully, yet persistently. The interview revealed what Douthat is about. He has a good analytical mind. He can contribute some level-headed analysis when presented with concrete facts and situations. His view of the current Israel and Ukraine situation does not insult the intelligence. There's nuance. But he wants to be above it all. In suggesting we must sit down with Putin due to the difficulties in Ukraine, he purposely ignores, for example, how Congressional Republicans have made the Ukraine situation worse. He glosses over the fact that if they got their act together, maybe we wouldn't have to beg Russia for a solution. But he cannot bring himself to severely judge the Republican party; he views them as 'what the people want, and therefore it's pointless to criticize'. Better to hammer Biden. Because both sides. Even though he admits that he supports Biden's actual decision-making, he can't help copping out when asked to rank presidents. His 'dodge' is that he speculates how popular opinion (or some historian's opinion) will evaluate Biden's presidency in the future. He does not actually judge Biden on his merits. So he can paint it any way he wants using non-specific other people's hypothetical judgments. Then he uses THAT strawman to throw up his hands and say Trump and Biden are equally rotten. He pretends to be the voice of the 'people' by maintaining that correlation (bad things have happened in international affairs) is more important than causation. He also leans on excusing something because the belief is something the majority of very misled Republicans hold tightly. So he cannot bring himself to acknowledge the total threat of Trump as different IN KIND to whatever bad events have occurred on Biden's watch. By his reckoning, because Biden has not arrested all the 'woke' people, this is enough to make him sooooo dangerous (smh), that really, who could blame someone for voting for Trump? In the end, Ross would be rotten in a foxhole: If a dictatorship comes, Ross will be writing copy for the Dear Leader.