Is it normal for a sitting senator to have to routinely submit proofs of life to a public who suspect he might be braindead? Just asking for 340 million friends in the US. Mitch McConnell was hospitalized for a medical event on 14 June and we are now in week six of What on Earth is Going On With Mitch? a mystery that has riveted the nation.

According to McConnell’s team there isn’t actually a mystery at all. The 84-year-old is doing great, they want us to know. So great that they have now released two photos to prove it.

The first was made public on Sunday 12 June, almost a month after McConnell’s hospitalization and appears to have been prompted in part by Trump ally and far-right agent of chaos Laura Loomer’s claim that Mitch was “officially brain dead”.

Kentucky’s Democratic governor Andy Beshear had also just sent a letter to McConnell asking him to be transparent and put an end to the speculation about his health. Funnily enough, the day before that photo came out, I’d published a column with the headline “Is Mitch McConnell secretly deceased?”

Rarely is a question answered so quickly. Perhaps, as my next offering to the mischievous headline gods, I’ll put out a piece titled: “Is Benjamin Netanyahu going to escape accountability forever?”

But back to that photo, which we’ll call Proof of Life One (POL1). Mitch, I’ll be honest, looked pretty good. He was wearing a nice pink shirt and his wife was standing next to him with her mouth stretched into something resembling a human smile.

I wouldn’t say she was caressing him exactly, but she had a hand under his arm. Mitch was also holding a copy of the day’s........

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