The fourth estate evolved into a fifth column so quickly, I barely noticed.

Hmm. A couple of weeks ago there was a spat within the White House Press Correspondents Association after one of its members, OAN, asked President Trump a softball question which . . . well, read for yourself from OAN White House correspondent accuses the media of “siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals, and Latin gangs and cartels” by Media Matter. I know the leftwing mainstream media regard OAN as a rightwing propagandist organization. But in the mainstream media fevered middle-school mean girl worldview, the Boy Scouts of America are a fascist organization, so who knows.

The question asked:

CHANEL RION (OAN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT): Mr. President, thank you. I have two questions. Do you consider the term Chinese --

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: OAN, very good.

RION: Yes, sir. Thank you. I have two questions --

TRUMP: Thank you very much. They treat me very nicely. Go ahead.

RION: -- do you consider the term Chinese food racist --

TRUMP: No.

RION: -- because it's food that originates in China or it has Chinese --

TRUMP: No, I don't think it's racist. I don't think it's racist at all.

RION: And on that note, major left wing news media, even in this room, have teamed up with Chinese Communist Party narratives, and they're claiming you are racist for making these claims about Chinese virus. Is it alarming that major media players, just to oppose you, are consistently siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals, and Latin gangs and cartels? And they work right here at the White House with direct access to you and your team?

TRUMP: It amazes me when I read the things that I read. It amazes me when I read The Wall Street Journal which is always so negative, it amazes me when I read The New York Times, it's not even -- I barely read it. You know, we don't distribute it in the White House anymore, and the same thing with The Washington Post. Because, you see, I know the truth. And people other there in the world, they really don't know the truth, really don't know what it is.

...

It's really, I think I came up with the term, I hope I came up with the term, but it is fake news. It's more than fake news, it's corrupt news.

So, yes, I can see where mainstream media journalists would be upset by a media outlet asking the president whether he is alarmed by the mainstream media functioning as a propaganda wing of the Chinese Communist Party.

If the mainstream media were not so dependent on their model of cheap opinions and cheap press release journalism (publishing anything that anybody releases as a press release, just to fill column inches), I think we would have fewer instances of them appearing to be a propaganda front for a hostile foreign power.

All that was back on March 19th.

But the MSM mean girls had their revenge. I didn't notice it at the time, but they got together and booted out OAN from the White House Press briefings under the guise that OAN was not complying with social-distancing. Truly. From Trump's Other Favorite Propaganda Outlet Uninvited from Press Briefings by Caleb Ecarma.

One America News Network, a far-right outlet and one of Donald Trump’s favorite cable news channels, has been removed from the White House press briefing rotation after a Wednesday night correspondents’ association vote. While OANN has aired some of the most batshit coronavirus stories—including promoting an unfounded Twitter theory that claims COVID-19 is a bioweapon hatched, in part, by the White House’s Dr. Anthony Fauci—its coverage isn’t what triggered the move. In a note to members, the White House Correspondents’ Association board explained their move to “restrict seating” to comply with the Centers for Disease Control’s social-distancing guidelines, and that an OANN reporter “twice attended press briefings in contravention” of this policy.

Uhuh! Yep. That's it.

She says something hurtful about the mean girls, they clutch their pearls, and strike back by voting her out of their group.

I just realized today that this had happened. It was back on April 2nd.

Not worth documenting all the bad behavior of the Ben Rhodes prima donnae.

Until it occurred to me that that looks far worse when you take into account something else which happened three days ago. On Tuesday, I posted on another exchange at a briefing on April 6th. A reporter from Phoenix Media asked a very loaded and one sided question of Trump to which he replied in inamicable New York style: "Who do you work for, China?" Brash but not unreasonable. She explained that she worked for a private media company in Hong Kong.

Except that the private media company in Hong Kong is owned by the Chinese Communist Party.

Again, emotionally unstable mainstream media middle-school girls are swooning and fainting at his crassness of presuming to rebuff a Communist Chinese planted journalist in the White House briefing.

Striking, but on its own, not especially surprising. The MSM will use anything to hand to defeat he who should not be acknowledged as President.

But string it together and what is an annoying occurrence becomes really bad optics.

The White House Press Association kicks out an American reporter because she deviated from the MSM narrative line and at the same time the White House Press Association has no problem with a Chinese Communist Party journalist taking the American journalist's place?

The Fourth Estate sure looks like they have evolved into a Fifth column right out there in the open.

Of course that isn't true. Most of this is bad ethics, bad reporting, bad prima donna personalities, institutional argy-bargy, short term ideological obsessions, etc.

But it can't help but look astoundingly bad.