Ross Douthat, writing in today’s New York Times (“The Decadent Left“): Yes, Occupy Wall Street was dreamed up in part by flakes and populated in part by fantasists. But to the extent that the movement briefly captured the public’s imagination, it was because it seemed to be doing what a decent left would exist to do: criticizing entrenched power, championing the common good and speaking for the many rather than the few. The union rallies and the Keystone demonstrations, by contrast, represented what you might call the decadent left, which fights for narrow interest groups rather than for the public as a whole. … Whatever your politics, there’s arguably more to admire in the ragtag theatricality of Occupy Wall Street […]