Bret and Butter: Update

Also, Stephens has a truly nasty private-school bully's smirk. Photo via Daily Wire.

Finally got around to reading Steve's terrific take on the Bret Stephens premiere performance, and found something I could have used for a unifying close to my own piece:

He's still telling readers that they're wrong if they accept the scientific consensus on global warming. He's still arguing that advocates for a strong response are tyrants drunk with power. But he's trying to sell this argument to people who believe the science, so he's conceding some of their points. 

That's it in the terms of Vincenz's parable of the Hasidic cart driver: as Stephens distracts us with this elaborate painting of the environmental movement as totalitarian, the 100% hooligans who will never acknowledge any merit on the part of the freedom-loving opposition, what he's actually accomplishing is billing himself as 55% right, the pleasant antagonist we'll be happy to surrender to. Not me! #NeverBret!