Has natureever produced a symbiotic relationship quite like the one between Donald Trump and the media? The clownfish/sea anemone combination is arguably just as dazzling, though it lacks the equivalent decibellevel. Ants and fungi are probablymore analogous, though its difficult to imagine either species going overwell in the Rust Belt.

In spite of theendless grapeshothe levels at journalistsfrom his piraticalTwitter account, The Donaldthrives off of media anticsand his long-shot presidential campaign would have been crippled without them. Thatmaestro of manipulation returned on Tuesday withhis most notable act yet, a tax controversy that ended with Trumpflying MSNBC like a kite and liberal Washington heading to bed crestfallen.

It began on Twitter where MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow trumpetedthat shed at last obtained Trumps tax returns. In response,the Trump administration promptlyannounced the documents were forthcomingmore on that later. Trumps returns have becomea journalistic white whale, stuffed, as left-wingreportersbelieve they must be, with KGB-orchestrated sweetheart deals and investments in Nazi propaganda upstarts. All eyes thus fell on Maddow as she opened her Tuesday program.

Shedidnt disappoint, sugar-rushing her now-expansive audience with lurid hypothesesabout Russian oligarchs and Azerbaijani shell hotels,all connected bya web withDonald Trump at itscenter, all about to revealed because sheyes, she!had acquired his tax returns, which would be unfolded right here, right now, after this commercial break. Stay tuned. Herprelude was quite literally 19 minutes long yetwe stuck around anyway, munching on popcorn.

RELATED:The White House responds to Rachel Maddows claim that she obtained Trump tax returns

Out next came David Cay Johnston, an investigative reporter and tax expert, who unveiled that hed obtained Trumps tax documents through the triumphantly shoe leather feat of having them anonymously deposited in his mailbox. Also, he acknowledged, they werent the full tax returns, just the two front pages from Trumps 2005 filing. HisArk of the Covenant-caliber revealshowed that Trump hadpaid $38 million on $150 million in income, a 25 percent rate.

And that was all hehad.You could almost hear the air escaping fromanother left-wing cause clbre.

Yet on it went, through a good two-plus hours more of programming. It was as though Geraldo Rivera had decided to do a touchdown dancein Al Capones empty vault, with all of MSNBC seeminglyunaware that the entire political world was either cacklinga la that Austin Powers scene or despondently reaching for the clicker. Rarely has such a nothing story been inflated to such bulging proportions.

As mentioned before, the White House had already preempted Maddow, toutingthe $38 million figure in a press release and trashing the media. Asked about this, Maddow remarked bewilderedly, We went to them. They verified it. They published it. And then they insulted us for publishing it.

You dont say. Its almost like the entire thing was a setup. Asked by CNN whether it was possible that Trump had leaked his own tax return, David Cay Johnston replied, Yes.

RELATED:Joe Scarborough has a theory about who is truly behind leaking the presidents tax returns

In fact, it seems undeniablethat the returns were plantedat least by someone sympathetic to thepresident. To understandwhy, consider all that Trump has gained from this brouhaha. The medias coverage of the CBOs punishing health lawassessment and the investigation into Trumps relationship with Russia has been diluted. The president appearsprudent, having paid a greater percentage of his income to the Treasury in 2005 than did Bernie Sanders and Mitt Romney. MSNBC has been humiliated, less because they reported on the returns than because they did so from such an aggressively slanted and hyped vantage point. TheNew York Times, which breathlessly suggested last October that Trump might not have paid any taxes for 20 years, looks silly.

Perhaps most priceless of all, the next time anyone harps on histax returns, Trump can accuse themof beating a corpse. This despite the fact that those scant two pages gave us only asnapshot ofTrumps tax standing: we still have no idea where his incomecame from, what his holdings are, what connections to those sinister Russians and Azerbaijanis he has, or how much hes paid in the intervening 11 years. Theissue is far from settled, yet Trump can now dismiss it courtesy ofone of his most bilious critics.

Which means weve learned two things from this episode: 1.) Our presidentpaid taxes in 2005, and 2.) when Trumpelectrifies the floor, news reporters always dance.

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Anatomy of a media rope-a-dope: Rachel Maddow and Donald Trump's tax returns - Rare.us