Douthat and Sullivan on "Christianism", Brownback, etc.

So, Andrew Sullivan was put off by Sen. Brownback's "All for Jesus" speech (that is, the speech in which Sen. Brownback quoted Mother Teresa).  Ross Douthat was put off by Sullivan's snark.  Sullivan fired back, riffing on Christianists, theocrats, and all those with "sectarian" reasons for their political positions.  And, comes again Douthat.  Bottom line:  Sullivan is still tedious.  On this matter, I'm with Rod Dreher:

Having finally seen it, I can only marvel at the complete pee-in-the-pants hysteria this thing has caused among some commentators. I literally thought he'd be shrieking the phrase from a stage at the state fair or something. In fact, all Brownback does is mention it as a quote from Mother Teresa -- something she said to him after meeting him. He quotes Mother Teresa, then concludes. "Faith is a good thing, not a bad thing."

That's it. That's what Brownback said (and as Ross points out, none of this helped Brownback have much of a showing in a straw poll in the fairly culturally conservative state where he gave the speech). And this is supposed to mark him out as the herald of a burgeoning theocracy?

I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record on this point, but the "Here come the Christianists!" freak-out over the Brownback address tells us way more about how alienated from ordinary American experience the unnerved are than it tells us about Sam Brownback. . . .