First, permit me to make this suggestion about the left's aim on their mammoth spending bill: they always intended to pass a $1.5-trillion measure and started out at $3 trillion so as 1) to seem conciliatory by accepting reduction by half and 2) to appear as accommodating the wishes of stalking horse Joe (I don't trust him to be a moderate) Manchin.

Now to comment on the weekly Bret (Stephens) and Gail (Collins) show on what used to be called the op-ed page of The New York Times — but, when they have their seemingly anodyne chats transcribed, becomes the paper's weekly steno pad.

The Bret and Gail chat for October 26 began with expressions of sympathy for Republican turncoat Liz Cheney, from Republican turncoat Bret Stephens, who went over to the other side when he quit The Wall Street Journal for The New York Times at the time of Donald Trump's first presidential campaign.

Stephens, in his opening remark, alluded to the "latest effort [of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy] to make Liz Cheney's life as unpleasant as possible."  This is projection from Stephens, as it is Cheney who is intent on making the lives of true House Republicans "as unpleasant as possible" by her service as a Pelosi puppet on the January 6 "sham" (quoting Rep. Jim Banks, barred from the panel by Pelosi diktat) select committee.  I quickly add that Stephens did not elaborate on the alleged effort from Mr. McCarthy vis-à-vis turncoat Cheney.  Would that it were her ouster from the House Republican Conference.

Stephens went on, in response to a question from Collins, to shrug that Cheney's quest for re-election is not likely to succeed, while at the same time he issued a statement despicable but expectable from the likes of leftist fanatics: "But I'm guessing that Cheney's re-election chances aren't great, either.  I think that, at best, she can lay down a marker for the future, proving that at least some Republicans refused to participate in the cult of Il Duce wannabes."  It takes an apostate desperate for approval from his new masters to be so mendaciously malevolent.

Stephens then called for a third party "that stands for classically liberal values like free speech, free markets and free societies."  But if this journalistic turncoat gives aid and comfort to the left, as by invidious mention of "Il Duce," he cannot truly want a third party.  Besides, the GOP is all about free speech and free markets and free societies — aren't you, House Republicans?

Stephens, acknowledging that a third party would split the GOP, not the Democrats, remarked, "I just want to wrest a remnant of thoughtful conservatives out of the maw of Trumpism.  The alternative is that Donald Trump and his minions become the default every time Democrats stumble."  Poor Stephens — he cannot accept the likelihood that "thoughtful conservatives" will see through his pitiful polemics and those of his ilk and is too addled by left-think to recognize "Trumpism" as standing for conservative populism, which is the bane of the left and the swamp for which it stands.

The rest of the Bret-Gail transcript, October 26, consisted of leftist balderdash on the issue of abortion — Stephens warning that reversal of Roe v. Wade will be bad for the GOP (a warning to warm the hearts of his paymasters at the Times) — and assurances that although Biden may have "'lost a step,'" his "performance," sneered Stephens, "is still much preferable to Trump's, who kept his step and lost his mind."  To which Collins high-fived: "Loved your Trump line, by the way."

How maliciously clever these anti-Trump/NeverTrump columnists are — but never accuse them of being thoughtful.  After all, "thoughtful leftist" is an oxymoron.  Take it from this Trump minion and bank it.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

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