If politicians are the most self-centered group of people in America, the news media is a close second. Whether it’s flaunting their mention in the First Amendment to suffering meltdowns, the news industry collectively puts forth a front that they’re above it all.

That pompousness was on display during the Tuesday edition of CNN’s The Situation Room as a segment hailed political analyst April Ryan for shouting at White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders over the national anthem protests by NFL players. Also in that segment, CNN Tonight host Don Lemon suggested that it was “fake patriotism” to simply believe in standing for the Star-Spangled Banner.

Host Wolf Blitzer showed the exchange in question from hours earlier and before he could even ask Ryan a question, Lemon interjected to state “amen, April” and pleaded for “more of that in the briefing room.”

Lemon continued his eye-rolling, gooey praise for Ryan:

April following up and getting an answer. I absolutely applaud you and I think all of the folks in the briefing room should do what April did. Challenge the podium and White House more cause they go from one reporter to the other one. They don't like the answer, they cut them off and they move on to the next person and, April, you didn't allow it. So, thank you for doing that. I'm sorry to interrupt.

Ryan thanked Lemon and seemed to insinuate that there was a reason that Sanders wouldn’t call on her during the briefing (read: because of Ryan’s skin color).

“First of all, I mean, you know, we have been in that briefing room for many, many years, for decades and strategically, Sarah did not want to call on me today and I listened to her ask — call on people around me. In the back, in the front, but the issue was, the underlying issue, they never dealt with the issue of police-involved shootings,” Ryan observed.

The American Urban Radio Networks correspondent touted herself as having previously asked the President himself about police-involved shootings, but “everybody” (presumably her media colleagues) were “dancing around it and not hitting the issue.”

Later, Lemon had a chance to comment on the broader topic of NFL player protests and lambasted the President for not appearing to care about the First Amendment rights of all Americans and the decision to kneel during the national anthem.

The late-night CNN host next argued that standing for the national anthem alone was “fake patriotism” whereas “real patriotism” boiled down to forms of protest like kneeling and understanding one’s free speech rights (click “expand” to read more):

And this isn't about some fake patriotism, about standing or some pageantry. Real patriotism is understanding what the Constitution means for all Americans and abiding by the Constitution, not doing some false presentation that you pretend to be a patriot while other people are around you, going to the concession stands, getting beer or fights in the stands or talking to each other with their baseball caps on. That is not real patriotism. Real patriotism is understanding that all of us are created equal and we have the choice to stand, kneel or sit or even attend a football game if we choose to.

One can think whatever they want about the President and many have correctly noted the falsehoods of he and others pertaining this blowup with the Philadelphia Eagles. However, claiming that simply standing for the anthem (and, by extension, the flag) isn’t patriotic is embracing the same type of either or fallacy that he's denouncing the President for holding.

To see the relevant transcript from CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on June 5, click “expand.”