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Glenn Thrush (apparently reinstated to the big stories after a time-out covering poor people's issues as punishment for sexually harassing co-workers) turns his investigative powers to the relationship between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. It's an "awkward, compulsory yet increasingly close working relationship between two men divided by temperament but Krazy Glued together by shared self-interest," he writes.
The core of the story comes down to two key passages. The first is former Democratic leader Harry Reid's understated assessment of McConnell's capitulation to Trump. "Anyone that deals with the president is part of the Trump message. […] It's not anything you want to define who you are, you know, by virtue of Donald Trump. But they are stuck with him. It's too bad." Oh, the things Reid doesn't say about his former counterpart in those few words. Like that McConnell's made his choice, and his choice is to be part of the Trump message.
The second passage is this: "The obvious differences between Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell obscure equally obvious similarities. Both are obsessed with winning; both are transactional, both have a highly attuned sense of self-preservation, both are obsessed with getting re-elected."
That's not all they share. Both are the recipients of largess from Russian oligarchs, the latest being a $200 million aluminum plant being built in McConnell's home state of Kentucky by Oleg Deripaska's company Rusal, the company that was recently granted sanctions relief by the Treasury.
Both also have absolutely no moral principles or patriotism. They totally deserve whatever pain they can inflict on each other, but the nation certainly deserves neither.