Kevin McCarthy was always accused of being a "deal-maker," and that was somehow part of his downfall.  So, too, Donald Trump was hailed for the "Art of the Deal."  Neither man, though, as I see it, really was much of a negotiator on national legislation or much else — largely because they had little to offer the other side.

Right now, as weak as the Republicans in Congress are, they have the potential to make a great deal for themselves.  They have something Biden and the Democrats are desperate to have (as are Mitch McConnell and the Zelensky Republicans) and which, at the same time, should be no major problem to conservatives.

That is aid to Ukraine.  For some reason the liberal Dems, after decades of being squishy-soft on the old Soviet Union, and then Obama's outright appeasement of Putin's Russia, have decided we need to fight it out to the last Ukrainian trans spokeswoman.

As I noted earlier this year, Ukraine, after wrecking much of the Russian army and its modern equipment, was going to exhaust its own resources, and we would be at some kind of stalemate by autumn.  A lot of Ukrainians still want another year of support to regroup and wear down the Russians to the point they might still collapse.  Possible, but not likely.

Still, they are doing a great service for the world as a whole.  The Russian military is so weak now that it will be decades, if ever, before the Russians can again bother the NATO countries, or embark on other misadventures.  They are so hard up for equipment that they are even stripping the defenses on the sensitive Kuril Islands off Japan.

The usual folks on our side are unalterably opposed to helping Ukraine, for peculiar reasons — Tucker Carlson, Doug Bandow, etc.  But for most conservatives, another year of supporting Ukraine's military seems like hardly the worst thing our tax money supports.

Rather, we should exult in our good fortune.  Democrats have adopted the Ukraine War as closely to their hearts as Drag Queen Story Hours.  They care about nothing else these days.  They want it so badly now, so let's trade for the thing we really want: fixing the southern border.

This would include restoration of Remain in Mexico for asylum-seekers and strict limits on the number of immigrant paroles and Temporary Protected Status waivers.  Things are so bad that Biden is doing a bizarre flip-flop on building more sections of the border wall.  So Democrats are finally starting to crack on this issue, anyway.

Let's hope the next speaker will take yes for an answer, and we can make a deal to finally close off the millions of illegals flooding our country.  That would be a real Art of the Deal.

Frank Friday is an attorney in Louisville, Ky.

Image via Pxhere.