Ezra regarded this Atrios post as a pessimistic contribution to the importance-of-the-wonks debate. That's certainly how Atrios wrote it. The sunny side that Atrios mentions but doesn't focus on is what the wonks will do when Democrats have the ball. When you're playing defense, it doesn't really matter whether your policy arguments are right, as long as they're effective in shutting down the Republican measures that are coming your way. So if you're up against a Republican Party that cares nothing for the common good, all you need is the partisan wrecking crew to smash up everything they try to do. Sure, wonks have a limited role when something like Social Security privatization comes up, but for the most part they're dreaming about how to do things that you can only do when you're running things. While our partisans and cultural-criticism folks are useful in any season, policy knowledge meets its raison d'etre when you can actually enact policy.
