Gail Collins: Happy April, Bret! Since we’re past Fools’ Day, I will avoid any wisecracks about Donald Trump.
Where are you on the Mueller report? Ready to consign it to the dustbin of history? Demanding to see the full document? I have to admit I’m sort of ready to give up and move on. Although you could definitely talk me back into the fold.
Bret Stephens: Four thoughts, Gail.
First: Thank God the president of the United States, whatever else we may think of him, did not collude with Russia to get himself elected. I’d rather have a scoundrel in the White House than a traitor.
Gail: You’re setting the bar pretty low there, but you’re still right.
Bret: Second: Thank God we have a report at all — which, considering the vindication it brings Trump (and the vindictiveness it brings out of him) — would not have happened if the Trumpists had gotten their way and Mueller had been fired. All of those conservatives who impugned Mueller’s integrity and his team’s impartiality owe them a giant apology.
Gail: Not holding my breath waiting. Go on.
Bret: Third: Thank God for Mueller himself. He didn’t pontificate on the Sunday talk shows the way Jim Comey or Adam Schiff did. He didn’t pull any punches when it came to prosecuting the likes of Paul Manafort. He ran a tight ship. He demonstrated that even in Washington there is no substitute for character, professionalism and reputation. That’s why I suspect that when the full document is released, we’ll be able to treat it as the last word on the subject.
Finally: The news media, especially cable news, needs to do some major soul-searching. Too many reporters and pundits got way out ahead of their skis, creating a collusion narrative out of a series of unconnected dots. When historians examine why public confidence in journalism fell to such lows in our era, episodes like Russiagate will be a major part of the story.
Gail: You didn’t have to believe Trump was actively engaged in a conspiracy to point out a whole lot of unnerving stuff going on. For instance, there’s still a terrible potential for Russian sabotage via internet that this administration isn’t taking seriously.
Bret: For sure. There was a lot of smoke. There were plenty of dots. The investigation was warranted. The president repeatedly behaved in ways that suggested guilt, from lying about his business ties to Russia to seizing his translator’s notes after a conversation with Vladimir Putin to his cavalier attitude about Russia’s intentions.
The media was right to report all this and raise questions. But there was also a lack of skepticism about some of the evidence, and a tone of certitude about where that evidence was bound to lead.
Gail: I’ll give you the whole impeachment thing. That was perhaps over the top. But we’re still waiting to hear the results of investigations into Trump — mainly his business practices — that are still going on here in New York.
Bret: I agree in the sense that I think his behavior as “Individual No. 1” in the payoffs to former paramours are felony violations of campaign-finance laws. But I’m also becoming increasingly convinced that the endless investigations into Trump’s past business practices are going to wind up doing more harm to Trump’s opponents than they do to him. It makes him look like the victim of an endless inquest into his pre-presidential behavior. And it distracts Democrats from talking about the things that Americans actually want from politicians, like better schools and a growing economy.
Gail: Glad you brought that up! I’m way more interested in the attack on Obamacare than his unappetizing history in real estate.
What’s your opinion on where to go with health care? I will start by acknowledging Obamacare is sort of a mess. It began as a mess because certain senators (cough, mutter, Joe Lieberman) were too deeply in the thrall of the insurance companies to let a sane restructuring occur.
Bret: Music to my ears, Gail. Obamacare is a mess, even if most Americans have learned to live with it (as we do with other messes). If it weren’t a mess, Democrats wouldn’t keep talking about “Medicare for all” as the next evolution in health care policy.
I think that’s a huge mistake, both as a matter of policy and politics. It requires another major reorganization of a huge part of the U.S. economy. Take Bernie Sanders’s plan, for example: It’s going to cost a bundle — an estimated $32.6 trillion over 10 years — and the taxes to fund it will have to come from middle-class Americans. It will mean a declining quality of health care. And it will lead to a two-tier system in which wealthy Americans go “off grid” to get high-quality medical attention while the rest of the country is stuck in a system that will resemble the V.A.
Trump will also be merciless about this, politically, claiming that this is just the sort of socialism he warned about in his State of the Union speech. And it will frighten a great many voters, including those all-important suburban women, who might despise the president for all kinds of reasons but fear the Democrats are veering toward the Bernie Sanders left.
Gail: All the Democratic presidential candidates are not talking about Medicare for all. Some of the ones who did are trying to backpedal, not really having thought about what it meant before they went there. Three-fifths of the adult population from 19 to 64 get their health insurance from employers, and a lot of them like it. They’re going to get very nervous if they think they might have to give it up.
But we need sweeping change. Our current health care system is wildly expensive because it’s structured in a crazy way that creates piles and piles of stupendously expensive paperwork. We could create a government-run public policy option that would give people the security of Obamacare without the crazy structure. And gradually, if the option was attractive enough, employers might want to get in on it, too.
Bret: I definitely agree about the paperwork problem. My own views about health care are pretty libertarian. We need radical price transparency so that people are aware of the huge disparities in price between say, a blood test from Clinic A versus Clinic B. We need tort reform so that doctors don’t live in mortal fear of being sued by patients. We need more than just gold, silver and bronze insurance options: Healthy young people should also be able to buy cut-rate plans that cover only catastrophes.
As for Medicare, the long-term goal should be to get rid of it. That’s obviously distinct from Medicaid: Even crazy right-wingers like me believe that government has a moral duty to ensure that poor people have good access to quality medical care from womb to tomb.
Gail: Doctors do have to pay heavy insurance premiums to protect themselves from lawsuits. But patients also have to be protected from careless or inept physicians. It’s tough to find a perfect solution — people have been trying for years. But fine by me if you want to work on it, Bret. I’ll be cheering from the galleries.
Bret: The deeper problem with all of these health care debates is that we’re discussing something that inevitably generates bad outcomes even under the best of circumstances. But can we switch subjects from tragedy to farce? I’m curious to know your take on the Jussie Smollett story, which is what everyone I know was talking about last week (when they weren’t talking about Mueller).
Gail: You do have to thank the guy for taking Donald Trump off our minds. Not every day do you have a TV star making up a story of being attacked by MAGA hat-wearing racist thugs. Everybody was stunned when the prosecutor dropped all the charges. She basically said, well, this is what we always do with first offenders who don’t pose a threat to the community.
Not sure that would be true of first offenders whose self-promoting lies and evasions cost the city six figures in overtime. But it’s a good reminder that we have different criminal justice systems for the poor and the nonpoor.
Bret: I would not have minded if Smollett had gotten off relatively lightly — provided, that is, that he had admitted the charges, shown contrition and begged forgiveness. It’s the arrogance and gall that bothers me. Kim Foxx, the Chicago prosecutor, says her office would have had a hard time securing a conviction. Was Smollett’s check to the perpetrators and their confession of the crime not enough? The whole thing reeks of a corrupt bargain, and I hope the Department of Justice gets involved. Even Chicago can’t afford Chicago-style politics.
By the way, I don’t want us to wrap up the conversation without complimenting you on your marvelous column about statues, specifically their scandalous dearth when it comes to honoring women. I’m thrilled Billie Holiday will be getting one soon, in Queens. There are many more worthy would-be honorees that I can think of. Gerty Cori was the first American woman to win a Nobel in science. Zora Neale Hurston ought to have one, too, if she doesn’t already. And Dorothy Parker, provided the statue itself had a ribald sense of humor.
Who else should we be honoring?
Gail: Thanks, Bret. Right now, only five of the 150 public statues in New York are of women — we’ve got dozens of ethically compromised politicians and run-of-the-mill generals but we’re only now working on Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Once we’ve gotten the public figures taken care of, it’d be nice to celebrate some low-profile heroines. I was just reading about Esther Lewis, a widow who had a farm in Pennsylvania in the pre-Civil War era. She ran a stop on the Underground Railroad that sheltered runaway slaves, discovered iron ore on her property and created a serious mining operation, educated her four daughters and churned nearly 300 pounds of butter a year. There’s somebody I’d like to see standing in a town square.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Gail Collins is an Op-Ed columnist and a former member of the editorial board, and was the first woman to serve as the Times editorial page editor, from 2001 to 2007. @GailCollins • Facebook
Bret L. Stephens has been an Opinion columnist with The Times since April 2017. He won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary at The Wall Street Journal in 2013 and was previously editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post. @BretStephensNYT • Facebook
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | It’s the Day After April Fools’ Day
Opinion | It’s the Day After April Fools’ Day
Gail Collins: Happy April, Bret! Since we’re past Fools’ Day, I will avoid any wisecracks about Donald Trump.
Where are you on the Mueller report? Ready to consign it to the dustbin of history? Demanding to see the full document? I have to admit I’m sort of ready to give up and move on. Although you could definitely talk me back into the fold.
Bret Stephens: Four thoughts, Gail.
First: Thank God the president of the United States, whatever else we may think of him, did not collude with Russia to get himself elected. I’d rather have a scoundrel in the White House than a traitor.
Gail: You’re setting the bar pretty low there, but you’re still right.
Bret: Second: Thank God we have a report at all — which, considering the vindication it brings Trump (and the vindictiveness it brings out of him) — would not have happened if the Trumpists had gotten their way and Mueller had been fired. All of those conservatives who impugned Mueller’s integrity and his team’s impartiality owe them a giant apology.
Gail: Not holding my breath waiting. Go on.
Bret: Third: Thank God for Mueller himself. He didn’t pontificate on the Sunday talk shows the way Jim Comey or Adam Schiff did. He didn’t pull any punches when it came to prosecuting the likes of Paul Manafort. He ran a tight ship. He demonstrated that even in Washington there is no substitute for character, professionalism and reputation. That’s why I suspect that when the full document is released, we’ll be able to treat it as the last word on the subject.
Finally: The news media, especially cable news, needs to do some major soul-searching. Too many reporters and pundits got way out ahead of their skis, creating a collusion narrative out of a series of unconnected dots. When historians examine why public confidence in journalism fell to such lows in our era, episodes like Russiagate will be a major part of the story.
Gail: You didn’t have to believe Trump was actively engaged in a conspiracy to point out a whole lot of unnerving stuff going on. For instance, there’s still a terrible potential for Russian sabotage via internet that this administration isn’t taking seriously.
Bret: For sure. There was a lot of smoke. There were plenty of dots. The investigation was warranted. The president repeatedly behaved in ways that suggested guilt, from lying about his business ties to Russia to seizing his translator’s notes after a conversation with Vladimir Putin to his cavalier attitude about Russia’s intentions.
The media was right to report all this and raise questions. But there was also a lack of skepticism about some of the evidence, and a tone of certitude about where that evidence was bound to lead.
Gail: I’ll give you the whole impeachment thing. That was perhaps over the top. But we’re still waiting to hear the results of investigations into Trump — mainly his business practices — that are still going on here in New York.
Bret: I agree in the sense that I think his behavior as “Individual No. 1” in the payoffs to former paramours are felony violations of campaign-finance laws. But I’m also becoming increasingly convinced that the endless investigations into Trump’s past business practices are going to wind up doing more harm to Trump’s opponents than they do to him. It makes him look like the victim of an endless inquest into his pre-presidential behavior. And it distracts Democrats from talking about the things that Americans actually want from politicians, like better schools and a growing economy.
Gail: Glad you brought that up! I’m way more interested in the attack on Obamacare than his unappetizing history in real estate.
What’s your opinion on where to go with health care? I will start by acknowledging Obamacare is sort of a mess. It began as a mess because certain senators (cough, mutter, Joe Lieberman) were too deeply in the thrall of the insurance companies to let a sane restructuring occur.
Bret: Music to my ears, Gail. Obamacare is a mess, even if most Americans have learned to live with it (as we do with other messes). If it weren’t a mess, Democrats wouldn’t keep talking about “Medicare for all” as the next evolution in health care policy.
I think that’s a huge mistake, both as a matter of policy and politics. It requires another major reorganization of a huge part of the U.S. economy. Take Bernie Sanders’s plan, for example: It’s going to cost a bundle — an estimated $32.6 trillion over 10 years — and the taxes to fund it will have to come from middle-class Americans. It will mean a declining quality of health care. And it will lead to a two-tier system in which wealthy Americans go “off grid” to get high-quality medical attention while the rest of the country is stuck in a system that will resemble the V.A.
Trump will also be merciless about this, politically, claiming that this is just the sort of socialism he warned about in his State of the Union speech. And it will frighten a great many voters, including those all-important suburban women, who might despise the president for all kinds of reasons but fear the Democrats are veering toward the Bernie Sanders left.
Gail: All the Democratic presidential candidates are not talking about Medicare for all. Some of the ones who did are trying to backpedal, not really having thought about what it meant before they went there. Three-fifths of the adult population from 19 to 64 get their health insurance from employers, and a lot of them like it. They’re going to get very nervous if they think they might have to give it up.
But we need sweeping change. Our current health care system is wildly expensive because it’s structured in a crazy way that creates piles and piles of stupendously expensive paperwork. We could create a government-run public policy option that would give people the security of Obamacare without the crazy structure. And gradually, if the option was attractive enough, employers might want to get in on it, too.
Bret: I definitely agree about the paperwork problem. My own views about health care are pretty libertarian. We need radical price transparency so that people are aware of the huge disparities in price between say, a blood test from Clinic A versus Clinic B. We need tort reform so that doctors don’t live in mortal fear of being sued by patients. We need more than just gold, silver and bronze insurance options: Healthy young people should also be able to buy cut-rate plans that cover only catastrophes.
As for Medicare, the long-term goal should be to get rid of it. That’s obviously distinct from Medicaid: Even crazy right-wingers like me believe that government has a moral duty to ensure that poor people have good access to quality medical care from womb to tomb.
Gail: Doctors do have to pay heavy insurance premiums to protect themselves from lawsuits. But patients also have to be protected from careless or inept physicians. It’s tough to find a perfect solution — people have been trying for years. But fine by me if you want to work on it, Bret. I’ll be cheering from the galleries.
Bret: The deeper problem with all of these health care debates is that we’re discussing something that inevitably generates bad outcomes even under the best of circumstances. But can we switch subjects from tragedy to farce? I’m curious to know your take on the Jussie Smollett story, which is what everyone I know was talking about last week (when they weren’t talking about Mueller).
Gail: You do have to thank the guy for taking Donald Trump off our minds. Not every day do you have a TV star making up a story of being attacked by MAGA hat-wearing racist thugs. Everybody was stunned when the prosecutor dropped all the charges. She basically said, well, this is what we always do with first offenders who don’t pose a threat to the community.
Not sure that would be true of first offenders whose self-promoting lies and evasions cost the city six figures in overtime. But it’s a good reminder that we have different criminal justice systems for the poor and the nonpoor.
Bret: I would not have minded if Smollett had gotten off relatively lightly — provided, that is, that he had admitted the charges, shown contrition and begged forgiveness. It’s the arrogance and gall that bothers me. Kim Foxx, the Chicago prosecutor, says her office would have had a hard time securing a conviction. Was Smollett’s check to the perpetrators and their confession of the crime not enough? The whole thing reeks of a corrupt bargain, and I hope the Department of Justice gets involved. Even Chicago can’t afford Chicago-style politics.
By the way, I don’t want us to wrap up the conversation without complimenting you on your marvelous column about statues, specifically their scandalous dearth when it comes to honoring women. I’m thrilled Billie Holiday will be getting one soon, in Queens. There are many more worthy would-be honorees that I can think of. Gerty Cori was the first American woman to win a Nobel in science. Zora Neale Hurston ought to have one, too, if she doesn’t already. And Dorothy Parker, provided the statue itself had a ribald sense of humor.
Who else should we be honoring?
Gail: Thanks, Bret. Right now, only five of the 150 public statues in New York are of women — we’ve got dozens of ethically compromised politicians and run-of-the-mill generals but we’re only now working on Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Once we’ve gotten the public figures taken care of, it’d be nice to celebrate some low-profile heroines. I was just reading about Esther Lewis, a widow who had a farm in Pennsylvania in the pre-Civil War era. She ran a stop on the Underground Railroad that sheltered runaway slaves, discovered iron ore on her property and created a serious mining operation, educated her four daughters and churned nearly 300 pounds of butter a year. There’s somebody I’d like to see standing in a town square.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Gail Collins is an Op-Ed columnist and a former member of the editorial board, and was the first woman to serve as the Times editorial page editor, from 2001 to 2007. @GailCollins • Facebook
Bret L. Stephens has been an Opinion columnist with The Times since April 2017. He won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary at The Wall Street Journal in 2013 and was previously editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post. @BretStephensNYT • Facebook
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