Her original outburst, it should be noted, came in response to a question from Brietbart.com, the site that Trump’s chief advisor Steve Bannon helped transform into a hot sheet for neo Nazis and white nationalists.

The reporter, Brian Karem, basically told Huckabee Sanders to stop whining about fake news and to start answering questions, which is her (taxpayer funded) job. Huckabee Sanders responded by whining some more about fake news.

Tuesday’s White House briefing featured a viral confrontation between the president’s new spox, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and a reporter who finally got sick of listening to yet another slanderous, self-victimizing rant about how the media is out to get her boss.

in the Trump administration, there is no penalty for lying. In fact, it’s an employee mandate.

Brietbart runs stories with headlines such as Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy, and Donald Trump Plans to Continue GOP Legacy of Leading on Women’s, Civil Rights Against Racist, Sexist Democrats, so you can understand why the Administration would want to grant a Brietbart shill a place in the White House press room. How else are Americans going to get real news?

The Brietbart question concerned a recent CNN report that had been retracted. The three journalists who worked on the report were fired.

Trump, who devotes much of his daily schedule to hollering at his TV, naturally used the CNN story to rave about how the media (i.e. any outlet that doesn’t produce pro-Trump propaganda) are all frauds.

But what the CNN firings actually demonstrate is the insane double standard that now prevails in our political discourse.

It works like this: the president and his various mouthpieces get to lie as much as they like. They get to lie about little petty things, such as crowd sizes. And they get to lie about big things, such as massive voter fraud and why Trump fired the FBI Director and how Barack Obama tapped his wires.

The New York Times recently listed all of Trump’s documented lies while president. It took a full page.

His top-level advisors also get a great deal of latitude to lie. They can, for instance, make repeated references to terrorist attacks on American soil that never actually happened.

If any journalist at a serious news organization did this kind of thing, they would be fired on the spot and blacklisted from the profession.

President Donald Trump answers a question from the media, during a meeting with Romanian President Klaus Werner Iohannis, not shown, in the Oval Office at the White House, Friday, June 9, 2017, in Washington. (Andrew Harnik/ AP)

But in the Trump administration, there is no penalty for lying. In fact, it’s an employee mandate. At least until such a time as Trump contradicts his underlings.

In other words, Trump has established a presidency entirely devoted to disinformation. His central mission isn’t just to lie, but to undermine the very idea of truth. Only in a world of hype and deception can he maintain the illusion that he is heroically carrying out the duties of the presidency.