Who is Jonathan Chait?

Rush mentioned Chait on his program today:

Jonathan Chait is a hate merchant. Jonathan Chait, he's at the New Republic, he wrote a piece: "Why I hate George W. Bush," some years ago and was lauded for it. Here's what Jonathan Chait wrote, blog post at the New Republic: "Now, most elite Republicans understand that the red meat fed to the base isn't exactly right. It's useful to scare the daylights out of the activists, but writers for the Standard and the Journal editorial page understand that 'freedom,' as most people understand the term, is not really at risk. They understand as well that politics is a little more complicated than 'if Republicans stay true to conservatism, they cannot lose.' But the conservative base is not in on the joke. And so Republican elites found themselves with just a few frantic days to undo the toxic and intoxicating effects of 20 months of relentless propaganda. Vote for the man who compromised with evil! The true conservative can't always win! They couldn't do it. I won't say that the Republican base strategy has been a total failure. But it is nice to see it blow up in the face of the establishment from time to time."

Now, let me translate this for you. This is ruling class talk. Jonathan Chait, New Republic, hate merchant, big lib, is winking at us. He said, look, these guys, you know, our counterparts over at the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Weekly Standard, National Review, you know, all these conservatives, these Republicans, they understand that there's no freedom at risk here. Obama's not the destroying the country, they know this, but their base has to be indulged. The fringe kook conservative base, which feels that freedom is threatened, that Obama is destroying the country. The Republicans regretfully understand they have to indulge and entertain that base and so they throw us a bone now and then. And then sometimes they go too far and one of their fringe kooks actually wins something, as in Christine O'Donnell and Chait's happy to see the guys at the Wall Street Journal, the National Review and the Weekly Standard have it thrown in their face. So they're all in on the gig, see. They're all in on the joke. All these inside the Beltway people, "Look, those stupid Americans, those stupid right-wingers, those extremist kooks, do they really think freedom's threatened? Do they really think Obama wants to take away freedom? Ha. What a bunch of rubes."

Who is Chait?
From Wikipedia:
Jonathan Chait (born 1972) is a senior editor at The New Republic and a former assistant editor of The American Prospect. He also writes a periodic column in the Los Angeles Times.

Personal life
Chait, a doctor's son, grew up in the suburbs of Detroit and is a graduate of the University of Michigan. There he wrote for The Michigan Daily and co-founded The Michigan Independent. He lives in Washington DC and is married to Robin Chait, an education-policy analyst at the liberal Center for American Progress think tank.

Career
Chait began working at The New Republic in 1995. In January 2010, The New Republic replaced The Plank, TNR's group blog, with the Jonathan Chait Blog. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Slate and Reason. He took over The New Republic's TRB column from Peter Beinart in March 2007. His columns from 2008 are a finalist for the National Magazine Award, in the category of best commentary.

On Sept. 12, 2007, his book, THE BIG CON: The true story of how Washington got hoodwinked and hijacked by crackpot economics, was published by Houghton-Mifflin.

On March 16, 2009, Chait appeared on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report to refute conservative arguments that the New Deal was a failure. The impetus for that appearance was an article he wrote for The New Republic called "Wasting Away in Hooverville."

Chait also appears in The Rivalry, a 2007 HBO documentary about the history and culture of the Michigan-Ohio State football rivalry.

Positions
Chait usually writes about domestic politics and policy. Many of his writings are critiques of what he perceives to be illogical positions taken by conservatives. A self-described liberal hawk, he has however written pieces critical of left-wing figures such as Naomi Klein, and also wrote a TNR cover article condemning the state of Delaware. He makes frequent use of humor and sarcasm.

He drew considerable attention with his "Case for Bush Hatred", in which he defended his dislike not only of Bush's policies but also his personality and mannerisms.

Chait took a dim view of the presidential candidacies of Howard Dean, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, believing that all of them suffered problems with electability. During the 2008 presidential race, Chait wrote many items supportive of Barack Obama

Chait strongly criticized the editorial staff of the Detroit Free Press following a controversial article by Michael Rosenberg that alleged systemic infractions of NCAA Rules by the Michigan football team. Chait suggested Rosenberg's editor should "lose his job" and called the investigation's methodology "journalistic malpractice."

On February 22, 2010, following an investigation stemming from allegations raised in Rosenberg's article, UM announced that the NCAA has found probable cause that the school committed five major violations, corroborating some but not all of the allegations in Rosenberg's article. On Tuesday, May 25, 2010 the University of Michigan responded to the NCAA Notice of Allegations; after which, Chait claimed that Rosenberg's allegations that coach Rich Rodriguez "operated a football sweatshop has been totally debunked."