I was intrigued to see Sen. Chris Murphy in a newspaper photograph last week, hosting Linda McMahon in his Senate office, both sitting cross-legged, genially chatting.

Murphy was quoted in the accompanying story gushing about Donald Trump's cabinet pick, the wrestling magnate from Connecticut, to lead the country's Small Business Administration.

"Linda McMahon's a talented and experienced businessperson, there's no doubt about it," Connecticut's junior senator was quoted as saying.

Just last month Murphy said on national television that McMahon is "unquestionably qualified" and would have been at the "top of his list" of the potential picks to lead the SBA.

Excuse me, but this is the same woman who both he and Sen. Richard Blumenthal demonized harshly in their successive, successful Senate races against her.

They painted her as a ruthless employer, exploiting workers by not covering medical care in a dangerous business with an extraordinary rate of work-related injuries and high mortality rates.

The woman, whose own boat was named Sexy Bitch, built a business empire by peddling fake entertainment fueled with misogynist story lines demeaning women, was the mantra of those campaigns.

On the debate stage in New London, Murphy complained that she outsourced jobs overseas, wanted to go to Washington to save herself taxes and would deny women abortion and contraception access.

The gloves were off, then. She was corrupting the morals of our youth, said somber Connecticut politicians in both parties.

A spokesman for Rob Simmons, who lost a bid against her for the Republican Senate nomination, complained that she bragged about "marketing sexually explicit programming that celebrated the degradation of women."

Now she's at the top of Sen. Murphy's list to head SBA?

I see now what Donald Trump means when he talks about the career politicians in Washington who will say anything that suits their needs.

It is true that McMahon will be the Connecticut politician with the most clout in Washington in the next few years. And she has never won an election.

She is finally getting some of what she paid for.

The some $100 million she spent on the two unsuccessful Senate campaigns turned out to be a colossal waste of money. But the millions she has invested in Donald Trump are starting to pay off handsomely.

Between 2007 and 2009 Linda and husband Vince McMahon donated $5 million to the Donald J. Trump Foundation, making them the biggest outside donors.

She gave $7 million in the last presidential election to pro-Trump super PACs.

If she joins his cabinet she could possibly reap some financial advantage, if she is required to divest any investments. Cabinet members divesting to avoid conflict are automatically exempted from capital gains taxes on those sales of investments.

Of course even without her contributions to his foundation and campaign efforts, McMahon and Trump have a lot in common.

After all, they both recovered from bankruptcy to make fortunes in TV entertainment.

They share a style, too, which you can see watching a video of the outcome of the Battle of the Billionaires wrestling match in which Trump ends up shaving Vince McMahon's head as the crowd cheers.

Of course Trump never appeared in the McMahon wrestling segment in which a wrestler has his way sexually with a fake corpse in a coffin. But he might as well have.

Apparently this kind of stuff now just makes Chris Murphy smile.

I'm expecting a little better from our other senator from Connecticut, when Connecticut's wrestling queen goes before the Senate as the person nominated to direct U.S. policy toward small business.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com