Reid-McConnell bond

Much attention has been paid to partisanship that has intensified in the nation’s capital in the last year or so.

President Barack Obama acknowledges that he has not changed the tone of Washington, but says he has tried more than have Republicans.

{mosads}GOP lawmakers counter that while Obama likes to hold bipartisan meetings for TV cameras, congressional Democratic leaders shun Republican legislative ideas.

So, as simmering antagonisms come to a boil during the six months before the election, it’s worth noting that the two leaders in the Senate have a strong working relationship.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) don’t see eye to eye on much. And they don’t hesitate to take partisan shots at each other; that’s what party leaders are supposed to do.

But like a couple of sports rivals who respect each other, Reid and McConnell don’t take cheap shots.

A telling moment in their relationship came last week when Reid apologized to McConnell on the Senate floor for going too far in attacking the Kentucky lawmaker on financial regulatory reform legislation.

Reid said, “Last week, I criticized the Republican leader for the way he was handling Wall Street reform. I even criticized him for a series of meetings he held in New York and the result of the meetings. I want the record to be very clear, however — I was in no way impugning the integrity of my friend from Kentucky,”

Reid was referring to a trip McConnell took last month to New York City for a private meeting with Wall Street executives.

“The senior senator from Kentucky and I have fundamental policy differences on a number of issues,” Reid went on, “but no one should take my disagreement with my friend to question his honesty.”

The relationship between Senate leaders has not always been respectful. In 2004, then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) broke protocol to campaign against his counterpart, then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

Reid was not fond of Frist and attacked him publicly on many occasions. In his autobiography, The Good Fight, Reid writes, “There are senators who are institutionalists and there are senators who are not. Frist was not.”

McConnell and Reid are, and that’s part of the reason they get along.