Opinion | No One Should Be Scoring Political Points Over a Fire

Bret Stephens: Gail, I feel heartsick watching the images coming out of Los Angeles.Lives, homes, businesses, landmarks, neighborhoods — charred, destroyed, vanished.

I know there was bound to be a political dimension to this, and a lot of blame to throw around, but this should be an occasion for unity of purpose.Gail Collins: Absolutely.The whole world is united in sorrow.However, once the fire’s finally under control and we pass through our first stages of grief and mourning, I really, really believe we need to deal with global warming and climate change — a phenomenon our incoming president says he doesn’t believe in.Bret: Yep — but it’s way too soon for political arguments and ideological score-settling, whether the alleged culprit is climate change or D.E.I.

For now, let Democrats and Republicans work together to get Angelenos the help they need.Later, we can fight about it all.Gail: Agree.

And we’ve got a lot of other stuff to fight about with the new Congress starting up.But we need to begin with — sigh — Donald Trump.

I’m kinda satisfied with the outcome of his trial here in New York.Bret: Say more.Gail: Can’t send a guy to jail when he’s just been elected president by people who have been fully informed about his conviction on 34 felony counts.For, um, falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal.But giving him an unconditional discharge makes him the first felon ever to serve as president.

Think that’ll be his footnote in history?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....