Remember Richard Clarke, in his appearance before the 9/11 Commission, when he prefaced his testimony with an apology? "Your government failed you," he said. Well, in my capacity as spokesman for my entire profession, let me apologize for the following item. Your media has failed you. From the Washington Post:

Anita Kumar, a Politico White House correspondent who helped put together the farewell drinks, told the Erik Wemple Blog, “I’m actually really happy with the turnout — it’s huge." She added: “And it taught me two things: One, we did the right thing, the thing that we always knew was right that I kind of second-guessed for a minute with all the criticism, which is, we’re meeting with the people that we cover. And it’s important — you have to talk to the people you cover. That’s it.”

The relentless desire of the elite political media to pretend that what we're experiencing is just politics as usual, that it conforms to the usual forms and fashions, and that, you know, the pendulum always swings the other way, (insert mandatory extraneous platitude here) is almost charming in its hopeful and child-like simplicity.

First of all, this is not a normal administration*. It is a larval tyranny.

Secondly, Sarah Huckabee Sanders was not a normal White House spokesperson. She was an embarrassingly bad liar and an embarrassingly arrogant countrified know-nothing running cover for a criminal gang, and everyone who attended this nightmare with canapes should be fired forthwith and replaced with someone who has covered organized crime for a living.

Sanders was a truthless spin artist for a corrupt administration*. Chip Somodevilla Getty Images

Erik Wemple is a fine media reporter, but he's just very wrong here:

Yet an important distinction should be taken into account. Journalists convey their sense of right and wrong in their work product, not in the appointments on their professional calendar. Sanders has a history of lying and poorly serving her country, but, well, journalists have a grand tradition of meeting up with liars — and slimeballs and felons and losers and scammers. That’s what they do.

"Meeting up with" people is not the same thing as organizing a farewell soiree for a truthless woman who fronted for a a bunch of crooks and bunco artists. (And I wonder how some of the people who cover this White House feel about having how they do their jobs equated with how SHS did hers.) And the problem with the highlighted sentence above has been demonstrated time and time again—from Sally Quinn's memorable Not Our Kind dismissal of the Clintons, to the closing of the ranks around Scooter Libby because he shopped at the same grocery stores they did, to the continued presence in public of that bag of rank old sins that is Henry Kissinger. A courtier press is not saved by its work product. It is inherently corrupt.

And, lo and behold, even at this worthless hootenanny, SHS stayed true to form, stiffing Wemple when he asked her about the many lies on which she built what's left of her career.

ERIK WEMPLE BLOG: Do you feel you were honest with the media?

SANDERS: Hey, Erik, I just don’t think this is the appropriate venue, but I appreciate you being here tonight.

Well, then, piss off, Elly May.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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