WASHINGTON — There’s an old maxim about the press, sometimes attributed to H.L. Mencken: “Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp post.” That’s why eyebrows were raised last night when the dogs hosted a party for a lamp post, with some of journalism’s loudest barkers gathering for Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the outgoing White House press secretary.

Maybe it was a case of Stockholm syndrome. Certainly, it was an odd sight: journalists turning out to raise a glass to the unflinching defender of a president who accuses the media of being “the enemy of the people” or worse.

But most of the journalists who gathered at Rare Steakhouse, a dim surf-and-turf joint two blocks from Pennsylvania Avenue, had no qualms. So what if Ms. Sanders told Robert Mueller’s investigators that she delivered false statements to reporters, and that she went 100 days without giving a press briefing?

For the demoralized herd of reporters who have spent the last two years being smacked around by Ms. Sanders, her last hurrah was just another happy-hour opportunity to source up.