Ramesh Ponnuru goes for the "but the Democrats are more extreme and ideological too!" bit.

Uh-huh.

Republicans are a more homogeneously conservative party today, but so too are Democrats a more homogeneously liberal party.

"More conservative" -- than what?
"More liberal" -- than what?

Today's Democratic Party resembles Nixon's GOP and today's Republican party resembles the John Birch Society. Otherwise, Ramesh, how do you explain why so many people keep voting for Democrats?

Never knew Indiana, North Carolina and Iowa had so many flaming left-wing liberals.

TS ADDS: My pen pal Frum is pissed.

The Specter defection is too severe a catastrophe to qualify as a “wake-up call.” His defection is the thing we needed the wake-up call to warn us against! For a long time, the loudest and most powerful voices in the conservative world have told us that people like Specter aren’t real Republicans – that they don’t belong in the party. Now he’s gone, and with him the last Republican leverage within any of the elected branches of government.

For years, many in the conservative world have wished for an ideologically purer GOP. Their wish has been granted. Happy?

Yes.