Now that Senate Republicans have finally made progress on their huge tax giveaway to the wealthiest Americans, they're finally freed from having to pretend to care about pettier issues like national debt, the middle class, or sex abuse. Mitch McConnell demonstrated that Sunday morning on ABC's This Week.

When the Washington Post first reported that Roy Moore was accused of making sexual advances on teenage girls, McConnell said that he believed the accusers, and called for Moore to step aside so that a less controversial Republican could take his place. But McConnell seems to have come out of that uncharacteristically ethical-sounding fugue state. When George Stephanopoulos asked him about the sexual misconduct allegations against Moore, the Senate majority leader completely back-pedaled:

"I'm gonna let the people of Alabama make the call. The election's been going on a long time, there's a lot of discussion about it, and they're gonna make the decision a week from Tuesday."

When pressed on whether or not he believes the Senate should investigate, McConnell gives what sounds like an automated response while refusing to even say Moore's name: "The ethics committee will have to consider the matters that have been litigated in the campaign should that particular candidate win."

McConnell is a politician before he's a person with discernible values, so if his opinion has changed then that means the political calculus has changed. The accusations against Moore came out in an environment where suddenly powerful men were being punished for being groping creeps. But according to a CBS News poll, Moore is leading his opponent, Doug Jones, by six points (though another new poll has Jones up by three).

But the telling detail is that 79 percent of Alabama Republicans think the sexual abuse allegations against Moore are fake. And out of those people, 92 percent believe the charges were faked by Democrats. So McConnell doesn't have to worry about taking a principled stand. He may end up with one more Republican who hates him in the Senate, but it keeps his majority secure. Which means he can get back to not funding children's health care in peace.