Near the end of its Tuesday story on Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer, the New York Times casually noted that the news “blunted whatever good feeling the president’s team had after his trip to Europe.”

Excuse me, but wasn’t blunting the president’s success the whole point of the latest installment of the Russia, Russia, Russia story?

Isn’t that why the leakers leaked when they did, and why the Times splashed the story on its front page day after day?

Excuse the cynicism, but there is a relentless pattern, and we don’t need a crystal ball to see the future. It looks like the past and the present. No better, no worse, just more of the same.

A year from now, Donald Trump still will be president and the media and the permanent bureaucracy still will be hounding him in a ruthless bid to drive him from office.

In responding to the attacks, Trump and his team will make numerous mistakes, none fatal, but the accumulation will take a toll on his presidency.

Drip, drip, drip goes the optimism.

That’s what we’re witnessing now, with another round of toxic mud masquerading as bombshell news overshadowing all other issues, from North Korea to tax reform.

I say masquerading because, for all the intrigue about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower, and for all the hyperventilating by Maxine Waters Democrats that this was the “gotcha” moment, the end result was the same: more smoke, yet still no fire.

The Russian lawyer, despite an email introduction from a music promoter that sounded like it came from a Nigerian prince with millions to share, had no dirt on Hillary Clinton to share, government-sponsored or otherwise, and Trump Jr. quickly ended a meeting he never should have accepted.

For the media and Dems, it doesn’t matter that nothing happened. Any fact that supports the narrative that Trump is an illegitimate president is fit to print, while facts that don’t fit the narrative fall to the cutting-room floor.

On Google, collusion is defined as “secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others.”

In the case of Trump, collusion is anything the media and Dems say it is. The goal posts are movable.

It’s not news when presidential candidates tap foreign sources for opposition research — except when Trump does it. Then it’s impeachable collusion.

Actually, this was a mere willingness to accept dirt on Clinton. Since no dirt was forthcoming, the whole Trump family is guilty of attempted collusion, or something.

Almost as amazing as Trump’s victory last November is the fact that so little has changed in the public discourse since then. America has reached a stalemate — emphasis on stale.

Count me as surprised. I assumed the obstruction and resistance would play itself out, and the nation could get back to some semblance of a fractious routine. While the anti-Trump demonstrations have petered out, the refusal to accept him as the president by about half the country is still strong, and there is absolutely no sign that bipartisanship is about to break out in Washington.

Unfortunately, the White House’s aversion to learning new crisis skills is also stubbornly strong.

The emails Trump Jr. released yesterday should have been released at the start instead of waiting for members of Congress to also demand them. The result is an emboldened opposition and precious time wasted in a serialized melodrama over a single meeting.

By now, the president, and even his family, should know they can never count on getting a fair shake from the White House press corps. They face a rabid hostility, and everything they say and do is seen through the darkest possible lens.

It’s not going to change, so Trump must. His White House leaks too much and by every indication, nobody is in charge.

It’s up to the president to fix the ship of state. Otherwise, the fate of his presidency will be decided by his opponents.

Drip, drip, drip.

As part of that repair effort, he must finally keep his Twitter focused on important public business, not private feuds. He did the right thing Monday and got immediate results.

With the Senate unable to pass an ObamaCare replacement bill and the monthlong August recess fast approaching, Trump tweeted, “I cannot imagine that Congress would dare to leave Washington without a beautiful new health-care bill fully approved and ready to go!”

Tuesday, in the midst of the Russia smoke bomb, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell postponed the August recess by two weeks to work on ObamaCare.

Depending on what the Senate does, the decision could turn out to be the most important news of the day. Or even of the year.

Really.

New York’s junket justice

File this one under “Adding Outrage to Injury.”

The city’s Conflicts of Interest Board let Mayor Bill de Blasio accept a free trip to Germany to join rioters at the G20 summit because it involved a “city purpose” — opposing the president of the United States.

That’s nuts and a remarkably wide definition of mayoral duties, but par for the course for this administration, which uses tortured legalisms to make its suspect actions kosher.

Recall that one of the reasons prosecutors didn’t charge de Blasio with a pay-to-play scheme was that lawyers advised him that what he was doing was lawful.

The conflicts board, a mayoral rubber stamp, sent its ruling only after the mayor had left City Hall for Germany last week, The Post reports. In other words, the boss has flown the coop, so our job is to make it legal.

Is there anything the board would say no to?

Giving IRS the finger

Headline: “Man mails IRS severed finger.”

Future headline: “IRS mails finger back, wants arm and leg.”

Here’s one for the books

Sometimes it pays to be behind in your reading. In my case, 50 years behind.

In 1967, Norman Podhoretz published “Making It,” a tight memoir about his rise from a “filthy little slum child” from Brooklyn (as a teacher called him) to the editor of Commentary magazine and a famous social and literary critic.

The book largely was panned, but has been reissued as a classic by the New York Review of Books.

I’m glad I waited. It’s a fabulous read, one I probably would not have appreciated 50 years ago.

Podhoretz is best known for being a liberal-turned-conservative, but the genius of the tale here is the author’s candor about ambition. He’d been raised and taught to resist the lure of success, but can’t help himself. He wants it all, and comes to resent those who resent him for daring to admit it.

It’s a timeless New York story, but don’t deprive yourself any longer. Have the pleasure of reading it now.