It’s easy to hate on the 112th Congress. Paralyzed by partisan gridlock not seen since the 1940s, the Congressional record shows that America’s “do-nothing Congress” hasn’t passed many bills while in office.

But, msnbc’s Lawrence O’Donnell came to the Senate’s defense in his Rewrite segment Wednesday.

He praised both Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for working together–out in the open, with C-Span cameras rolling–to get the fiscal deal passed in a “truly bipartisan vote” to raise income tax rates.

After the fiscal cliff deal came and went, the U.S. Senate quietly did a lot of work with the help of just a few devoted legislators. With McConnell’s support, Reid succeeded in pushing through a slew of nominations on behalf of President Obama.

“Harry Reid, who every day does much more than most people in the news media realize, and definitely accomplishes much more than the news media ever reports, pushed through pages and pages of nominations for President Obama yesterday when everyone was focused on what the House would do on the fiscal cliff vote. And Harry Reid did that with the active but invisible help of Mitch McConnell who did his part to make sure that no Republicans would vote against any of those nominations. And what did the United States Senate do today, that dysfunctional United States Senate? According to the news media, absolutely nothing.”



Before dismissing all lawmakers in one fell swoop, O’Donnell argued the Senate leadership deserves way more credit: