Because 2017 is an dystopian fever dream from which there is no escape, we are now well into our fourth consecutive day of strenuously arguing about a .gif file, apparently created by someone named "HanAssholeSolo" and tweeted to millions by the President of the United States, which portrays Donald Trump during his professional wrestling days beating the hell out of some guy with the CNN logo superimposed on top of his head. Just as our Founding Fathers would have wanted.

Incredibly, what's now at issue in this astonishingly dumb saga is not whether a cartoon of the president slapping a media outlet is a good or bad thing for democracy, but is instead whether CNN, which later spoke with an extremely contrite HanAssholeSolo, conducted itself properly in reporting that information. From the network's recap:

CNN is not publishing "HanA**holeSolo's" name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example to others not to do the same.

CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.

Internet-famous people on the right promptly lost their minds, accusing CNN of coercing that apology out of Mr. HanAssholeSolo, and suddenly the same people who demand that news outlets identify their "anonymous sources" turned into zealous privacy advocates. #CNNBlackmail briefly trended on Twitter. Ted Cruz, a principled conservative who would never condone violence against the media, thirstily made some vague, nonsensical allusions suggesting that CNN may have committed a crime. And Donald Trump Jr., who relishes every opportunity to reduce his persistent delusions of grandeur to the form of a tweet, cheerfully asserted that HanAssholeSolo, who despite remaining anonymous has been identified consistently as a "middle-aged man," is 15 years old.

CNN's explanation for this passage is that it proactively chose not to publish HanAssoholeSolo's name out of concern for his safety, and that it included that bolded passage to make clear that there was no quid pro quo involved here. Who you believe probably correlates strongly with how you feel about Making America Great Again. CNN's disclaimer is an odd turn of phrase, especially when it follows a detailed description of the interaction, which might reasonably be interpreted as a laundry list of conditions. On the other hand, it doesn't seem super likely that CNN, if it were trying to extract an apology, would so brazenly admit to doing so right in the text of the article. It's equally plausible to read that "list of conditions" as a preemptive explanation for why CNN didn't feel the need to dox him, and the right, as is their wont, found a way to read in something different.