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Where's the Conservative Outrage Over Warren?

E.J. Dionne channeled some of the I'm-fine-with-Rick-Warren arguments on this blog in his Post column today, which suggests that the brilliance of the Rick Warren choice is that it challenges everybody, not just lefties:

By inviting Pastor Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation, President-elect Barack Obama has alienated some of his friends on the left. By accepting, Warren has enraged some of his allies on the right.

There's this notion out there—call it the equivalence of outrage—that right-wingers are just as upset with Warren for agreeing to bless Obama as left-wingers are upset with Obama for asking Warren for his blessing. But where are these explosions of rage on the right happening? I can't find them. I went to National Review's lively "Corner" blog and couldn't detect any irritation. ("I haven't gotten a single angry email from a reader about this, and usually when conservatives are enraged by something, somebody emails me about it," NR's Jonah Goldberg noted.) No rage immediately evident in quick skims of Michelle Malkin, Confederate Yankee, Ace of Spades, or RedState, either. Christian Broadcasting News even rhapsodized that Obama "said he was tired of the same old 'us vs. them' mentality in DC and beyond. Well, picking Warren does the trick."

To try to get to the bottom of this—maybe it's the conservative rank-and-file that's upset?—I did a highly scientific study of three right-wing friends of mine, none of them pundits, asking them the question, "What do you think of Obama's decision to have Rick Warren deliver his inaugural convocation?" Here were the responses:

I'm not too sure yet ... On the one hand, he is trying to keep some of the dissatisfied Republicans he obviously picked up in this past election. On the other hand, the reaction from the LGBT community shows that Obama will find himself all too often ticking off either his political base OR America at large as he tries to do this.

I am mildly amused by the idea that some liberals are disappointed in Obama already.

I imagine he [Warren] would have a lot of good things to say and I will take him over Obama's pastors any day!

If that's anger, then Mister Rogers had an anger problem. I'm just not sure E.J.'s on target that "so many" on the right are upset with Warren. And unfortunately, his celebration of Warren kind of hangs on the equivalence of outrage—on the idea that Obama and Warren have both shown courage in bucking their supporters' wishes, and that Obama, in choosing Warren, is approving not of the politics of evangelical Christianity as they traditionally have been, but as they could be:

Warren appears to be genuinely interested in broadening evangelical Christianity's public agenda. In a recent interview with Steve Waldman of Beliefnet.com, Warren compared gay marriage to "an older guy marrying a child," and to "one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage." But he also called upon evangelicals to be "the social change leaders in our society" engaged with "poverty and disease and charity and social justice and racial justice."

Obama wants to encourage this move, which would be good for him and good for progressive politics. Fear that Obama's analysis is exactly right is why so many conservatives are so angry with Warren for blessing the new president's inaugural. Although I support gay marriage, I think that liberals should welcome Obama's success in causing so much consternation on the right.

Let's see Warren make a few moves that do provoke a little consternation on the right, and then we can be impressed. (E.J. actually offers some good ideas in his column.)