JULY 2025 – Center-right NYT columnist Bret Stephens came out and said it: “Not everything Trump does is bad.”
And of course the relatively modest number of reader comments – fewer than 250 as of now – skewered Stephens for even suggesting Trump, unprincipled and narcissistic though he is, deserves credit for anything.
Stephens is a onetime WSJ journalist who’s been cranking out columns for the NYT since 2017. By NYT standards he’s a conservative.
There’s nothing particularly special about the mechanics or reporting in today’s column, but Stephens deserves a Rosebud for coming out with opinions that he knew would trigger much of the NYT’s readership He deserves credit for simply saying, “for criticism to be credible, it cannot be blind.” It’s a remark rarely uttered – much less considered – these days.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/opinion/trump-president-policy-success.html
Key comments in Stephens’s column today:
If Trump’s opponents want to someday be effective — and let’s face it, we haven’t been — then we have to come to grips with realities that have so far eluded us. Such as: Not everything Trump does is bad.
I have lambasted the administration over and over again, both in its current and previous term. I’m sure I will again. But while it’s never fun to be fair to those you dislike, it’s also healthy. For criticism to be credible, it cannot be blind.