Juan Williams took time out of his busy schedule this week to let us know that Harry Reid is the real power broker in the Senate, and Mitch McConnell is just a washed up failure. How does he know this? Because apparently McConnell is doing exactly what Reid did or something.

In just over a month, McConnell has come to look like the beaten man. He is on the brink of breaking his promise to avoid shutting down government agencies. At the same time, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) continues to lash McConnell and Republicans in the Senate for failing to ram through a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that blocks the White House plan to halt deportations. Just last December, McConnell pledged: “We don’t intend to engage in rhetoric nor actions that rattle the public.”

We’ll just pause here for a moment to point out yet again that the GOP is not “shutting down government agencies” in any way, shape for form. McConnell is ready to follow Boehner’s lead and approve the funding to keep the entire agency open. The Democrats won’t allow the funding to be approved. But let’s press on.

Democrats appear to see no hope for the future. “The bottom line,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), told reporters “is this leader said he was going to be different and have an open amendment process and regular order…[and then he] went right back to the old Mitch. Right back to a process of shutting everything down, even stopping people from having 60 seconds to speak about their amendments.”

It’s certainly fair to ask about an open amendment process and regular order, but… he went right back to the old Mitch? Don’t you mean he went back to running the chamber like Harry Reid has for six years or more? Because that’s exactly how Reid conducted business. It was one of the biggest complaints against him.

McConnell has also failed to deliver on his promise to have the Senate work on Fridays to produce more legislation. And there is no sign that McConnell intends to reverse the “nuclear option” rules change made by Democrats when they held the majority. McConnell had complained bitterly when Democrats made that shift but now shows no sign of wanting to switch the rules back again.

I’ll grant you the argument about working on Fridays because he did say that. Of course, there are those who argue that the less time these Senators spend in the chamber, the better off the country is. But be that as it may, the main thrust in that paragraph has to do with the nuclear option. So let me get this straight… you’re saying that McConnell is a failure compared to Reid for not undoing a process that Reid put in place? You can honestly say that with a straight face?

I see.

“Sen. McConnell promised the moon but delivered a box of rocks,” said Adam Jentleson, the spokesman for Reid. He was referring to McConnell’s longstanding complaints about how the Senate was run when Democrats held the majority.

Allow me to offer a short translation of what Reid’s spokesman is trying to say here: You said you would make things better, but they’re just as crappy as they were when I was in charge.

A fair cop, sir.

“The Republican Senate has started off as the least productive, most partisan, most contentious Senate in recent memory,” said Jentleson. “From bypassing committees on every single bill so far to trying to silence senators who dared to disagree with him to failing to hold a single Friday vote, Sen. McConnell is running a closed and partisan process that is extremely unproductive for the middle class.”

So this is the worst Senate in recent memory, eh? I suppose you’re right, assuming that by “recent” you mean in the last seven weeks. Because every single charge that is being listed by Juan Williams is on the list of charges which everyone was leveling at the Democrats under Harry Reid for his entire tenure as Majority Leader. Look, I’m not saying that McConnell is some sort of miracle worker or that our sharply divided Senate is suddenly running like a well oiled machine with the GOP in charge. Anyone hoping for that sort of result was living in a fantasy world.

The point here is that Juan Williams is engaging in just what we’ve come to expect for decades now. There will always be a way to build a narrative which blames the Republicans for everything and the media will not hesitate to tell that story. If it inconveniently happens to require descriptions which are obviously identical to precisely what the Democrats have done is of no consequence. Inconvenient facts can simply be ignored.