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So It Has Come to This
A debate before the debate.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
I’ve always tried to use humor to get readers interested in the political issues of the day — or in the current era, maybe just less depressed.
After graduate school in Massachusetts, I moved to Connecticut, where my husband had a job in New Haven. Couldn’t find a regular reporting gig, so I contacted all the weekly and small daily papers to see if they wanted coverage of their state legislators. At the time, there were tons of potential clients — most closed now, alas. I wound up sending several stories a week to each of them, giving me a good background in state government and extremely speedy typing skills.
I moved on to cover local government for United Press International and New York Newsday. I joined The Times in 1995 as an editorial board member, then columnist, then editorial page editor. I left that wonderful job to go back to writing columns. I’ve also written a bunch of books, most on women’s history.
Most politicians and other sources I’ve dealt with have been aware of The Times’s strong honor code, and I can’t, to be honest, remember any unethical offer that was even vaguely tempting.
Don’t think I’ve ever sought out any personal favors from politicians, except an ongoing attempt to get the city to fix the broken sidewalk on my block. And I’m proud to say that after years of effort, the cracks are still there.
A debate before the debate.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
The last half-dozen or so presidential wives have run the gamut.
By Gail Collins
Here’s looking at you, Hunter.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Many of the people doing the loudest howling about the president’s son oppose gun control.
By Gail Collins
Is it still true that there’s no such thing as bad publicity?
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Voting for an independent candidate in a presidential contest does not make you principled.
By Gail Collins
Justice Alito and Senator Menendez have one thing in common.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
The turmoil sweeping the world shows no sign of abeyance.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
“Ma, Ma, where’s my pa?”
By Gail Collins
America is being tested in so many ways right now.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
And a few things we’d like to forget.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Who let the grown-ups out?
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Is it possible for us to get to the same place on gun safety that we’re getting to on abortion — where the people who make the policy feel pressure to be sensible?
By Gail Collins
I’m sure he’s open to changing his mind.
By Gail Collins
Avert your eyes.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Donald Trump may be a terrible presidential candidate but he’s God’s gift to quiz writing.
By Gail Collins and Patrick Healy
Pep up your entry into April with a politics quiz.
By Gail Collins
April Fools’ Day is coming to a political system near you.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
The many ways 2024 is turning into honorable versus dishonorable.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
And not just Jan. 6.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Did Biden change anyone’s mind? And can he maintain the momentum?
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
And Mitch McConnell is leaving the scene.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
What can Biden do about it?
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
The art of the deal has a downside.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
A win for normalcy.
By Gail Collins
Advice for the president after a tough week.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Didn’t you hear that the fix is in?
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Don’t be an election spoiler.
By Gail Collins
Hounding Trump is an important task.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Nikki Haley is the only thing saving us from a full year of just Trump vs. Biden.
By Gail Collins
And it’s getting very crowded.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
She might not be a stupendous candidate, but at least she’s somewhat sane.
By Gail Collins
The Iowa caucuses are over, but we have all of 2024 ahead of us.
By Gail Collins
Who will be the best of the rest?
By Charles M. Blow, Gail Collins, Jamelle Bouie and David Brooks
It might as well be “Frozen III” in Des Moines. And what a cast of characters.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Can he get away with everything?
By Gail Collins
It’s 2024. Sorry.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Test how closely you followed the news this holiday season.
By Gail Collins
There wasn’t much to love about 2023, either.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Even in Washington.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
In case you were wondering.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Today, we’re going to moan about the system we use to choose a president.
By Gail Collins
Do any of them deserve to be Time’s person of the year?
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
There is always something to be grateful for.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
If we came to think of Trump derangement syndrome as a mental health problem, who do you think would be the first person diagnosed?
By Gail Collins
Does Nikki Haley’s rise suggest there might be life left in the Republican primary?
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
The new Times/Siena poll is to Biden’s second-term ambitions what sunlight is to morning fog.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Another slaughter, another congressional nothingburger.
By Gail Collins
This House is certainly not … homey.
By Gail Collins
Third parties are always one too many.
By Gail Collins
A basic rule of Trumpism is that he always gets worse. And the world isn’t getting any better, either.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Does this mean there’s a sanity caucus out there for the taking?
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
“One thing that worries me is how uncool politics has become.”
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
September is the cruelest month? It is if you’re Joe Biden.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Test how closely you followed the news this summer.
By Gail Collins
The wall isn’t very useful at stopping migrants, but it’s great as a symbol of our worst impulses.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
No one said the road to 2024 was going to be easy (or easy to take).
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
It isn’t every generation that produces a president who is charged with 91 counts by two local D.A.s and one special counsel.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Maybe Chris Christie can redeem himself, though.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
And it’s not because of Commander’s biting.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
He has turned Republicans into the Opposite Party.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
The senator from West Virginia just loves New Hampshire.
By Gail Collins
The “uphill battle” for guns isn’t over.
By Gail Collins
The strange case of the governor of Florida’s presidential campaign.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
How much pessimism about the future of the United States is warranted?
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
R.F.K. Jr. is a walking, talking conspiracy theory.
By Gail Collins
The fine print is what really matters when it comes to affirmative action.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Times columnists chose the TV shows, movies, books and songs that capture the country as they see it.
By Gail Collins
Are you caught up on current affairs?
By Gail Collins
The former president serves up a classic combination of shocking and stupid.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Raise your hand if your name’s not Trump.
By Gail Collins
Biden-Trump, the sequel, has quite a few plot twists.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
The country shouldn’t discriminate against older workers, and older workers shouldn’t insist on staying in jobs they can no longer really carry out.
By Gail Collins
Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis are on the near horizon.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
It’s hard to imagine the Trump and DeSantis families getting together for a cookout.
By Gail Collins
Just when you thought things couldn’t get stranger or sadder.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Third parties aren’t going to save us.
By Gail Collins
Debt ceiling? Running mate? Surely there’s something else we could talk about.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
And it can’t wait any longer.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
What could go wrong?
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Are you 1? Are you 2? Are you … 95?
By Gail Collins
Meanwhile, Dobbs continues to shape the political landscape.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
“Uncharted territory” doesn’t begin to cover it.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Or maybe more than a word.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Things are getting Stormy.
By Gail Collins
The governor of Florida has the national interest all wrong.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Biden-Harris is here to stay.
By Gail Collins
They say that hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, but in this case it’s the tribute that cynicism pays to cowardice.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
On the other hand, Ron DeSantis is unlikely to be indicted while running for president.
By Gail Collins
Democratic candidates everywhere should be paying attention to the miserable showing of Lori Lightfoot in the mayoral primary.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
There are many different ways to be lonely.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
And quick.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Biden may be 80, but the real danger is the prepubescent opposition.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
It’s a big week in Washington.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
The horror doesn’t just lie in the carnage. It’s that we’ve become accustomed to it.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
The freshman representative fits right in to the Republican majority in the House.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
From the royal family to the House of Representatives, it was a strange week.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Kevin McCarthy gets his chance to bang the gavel.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Fewer men are filling governors’ mansions. Not few enough.
By Gail Collins
Out with the old and in with the … what, exactly?
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens