In 2007, Rush Limbaugh blasted “phony soldiers” — i.e., people who claimed to have been in Iraq but weren’t. Reid said that Rush was “unpatriotic.” (N.B.: Liberals can call conservatives unpatriotic — Howard Dean: “John Ashcroft is not a patriot” — but not vice versa.) Reid got 40 other Democratic senators to sign a letter denouncing Rush.

And then Rush went to work, in his characteristic way — making lemonade out of those 41 Democratic senators. He obtained their letter and auctioned it on eBay. He got $2.1 million for it — which he gave to charity. That was after chipping in an additional $2.1 million himself. (He does that.) The charity was the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, which provides scholarships to children of the fallen.

While all this was going on, Reid, too, did something characteristic: He took to the Senate floor and pretended he was acting in concert with Rush, for the benefit of children. “I strongly believe that when we can put our differences aside, even Harry Reid and Rush Limbaugh, we should do that and try to accomplish good things for the American people.” I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything more brazen or galling in politics.

Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi — what swell leaders the Democrats have. Will I take Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and John Boehner over them? Any day. What the American electorate will do, I’m not sure.