Mitch McConnell returned to the Capitol on Monday in a wheelchair, 92 days after a fall at his Washington home left him briefly unconscious, and 17 years after he should have taken retirement in the USA. He was hospitalised on 14 June, reportedly developed pneumonia, spent weeks in rehabilitation, and his office declined for months to say why he had gone in or when he would come back. His statement on returning concedes he is still not quite back to 100%, which is obvious from the wheelchair the aged Senator now resides in.

This is the party that spent two years running a national campaign on Joe Biden's fitness, built on a shuffling gait and a lost train of thought. But Biden was never hospitalised unconscious, never absent from the Capitol for a quarter of a year, never wheeled to the floor of the senate due to an inability to walk. McConnell has now cleared all three bars and the same caucus is counting his vote, without a word about his age. Most of the coverage so far hasn't made a big deal about his age, despite many of the same outlets joining in on the attack on Joe Biden. Major exceptions for the Hill and the Daily Beast, who made his age the centre point of their coverage.

Similarly, nothing has been made of the Senator's position on sick pay in the workplace, an issue he has voted against for at least 3 decades. McConnell did not reject payment in his three months of absence, a fact that is completely contrary to his voting record. This issue wasn't even raised by the outlets who did tackle his age.

At a turtle's pace, the hypocrisy that long surrounds the Senator from Kentucky has returned in the same wheelchair he rolled in on.