Conventional wisdom among the media says that anyone associated with President Trump must be like Trump himself: rude, crude, and unacceptable. It also says that media are high-minded and honorable seekers of truth.

High-minded indeed. That is, until they’re not.

Trump Special Assistant Kelly Sadler made an egregious comment during a Thursday meeting when she cracked that Sen. John McCain’s opposition to CIA nominee Gina Haspel really didn’t matter. Why? Because ‘he’s dying anyway.’

Yep, that was brutal and devoid of class. Cindy McCain, John McCain’s wife, tweeted directly to Sadler, “May I remind you my husband has a family, 7 children and 5 grandchildren.” On Friday, McCain’s close friend Joe Biden said in a statement, “People have wondered when decency would hit rock bottom with this administration. It happened yesterday.” And Julian Zelizer of CNN added his two cents, pinning the blame on Trump for helping to “cement an unfortunate new normal.”

And then there was poor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House Press Secretary.

On Friday, the White House press corps grilled her up one side and down the other about the incident:

“Does the president set the tone? Does he bear responsibility for the tone set here at the White House and all of the staffers who work here?” “We’ve heard a lot about white House aide Kelly Sadler and her comments. Does she still have a job?”

Sarah Sanders soldiered on as best she could, responding this way:

“I’m not going to comment on an internal staff meeting.”

And again:

“I’m not going to validate a leak out of an internal staff meeting one way or the other.”

And yet again:

“Again, I’m not going to get into a back and forth because people want to create issues of a leaked staff meeting.”

She was no doubt caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea, knowing that Sadler made a disgusting comment, yet taking the press arrows for her boss. The anti-Trump media would accuse her of spinning, of course, but show me when the press hasn’t done some spinning themselves ever since Trump took office.

But then there was MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, who cranked the volume up to 11. Wallace implied that maybe a colleague should choke Sarah Huckabee Sanders:

“How do you resist the temptation to run up and wring her neck? Why can’t she just say if a staffer said that, we’re going to get to the bottom of it and she’ll be fired?”

Since when is it decent and proper to wish violence on, well, anyone? Especially if they haven’t harmed you at all?

Well, I guess if she’s Trump’s press secretary, she’s fair game. She obviously deserves it.

Later, Wallace apologized. Of course she qualified it by saying she was ‘trying to imagine’ the ‘exasperation’ of reporters:

When I asked about whether the tension in the briefing room ever makes reporters want to wring the neck of the spokesman, I used poorly chosen words, & for that I’m sorry. I was trying to imagine the exasperation of getting spin & not answers re: John Mccain being “about to die”

— Nicolle Wallace (@NicolleDWallace) May 11, 2018

Did Sarah Huckabee Sanders do some spinning on the Kelly Sadler kerfuffle? Of course she did. As the GEICO ads say, “It’s what you do.” She is not the first, nor will she be the last White House Press Secretary to slant a story in order to put lipstick on a pig. And I’d be willing to bet that if you were a presidential press secretary, you would do the same.

Then again, the press should stop with their oh-so-honorable act, because obviously they’re far from it.  So stop pissing on our legs and telling us it’s raining, okay?