At this point even Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe’s campaign felt obliged to distance itself from the dirty trick. McAuliffe campaign manager Chris Bolling called it “disgusting and distasteful,” and went on to say “the McAuliffe campaign condemns it in the strongest terms.”

Critics noted this condemnation didn’t come until after several members of the McAuliffe team had retweeted the original item as though it were real, with campaign communications staffer Jen Goodman calling the tiki-torch photo “disgusting and disqualifying.” McAuliffe spokesperson Christina Freundlich said “this is who Glenn Youngkin’s supporters are.”

You might think there would be strong media interest in finding out who these tiki-torch posers are. Instead the press seems content to pretend this is all an intra-GOP squabble, with the Washington Post calling the Lincoln Project “an anti-Trump Republican group” and Reuters describing it as “a group of mostly Republican critics.”

The truth is that the Lincoln Project is by now a relentlessly anti-Republican outfit, and Mr. Stevens has written an entire book disavowing his long GOP career. As chief strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, he does have a lot to answer for.