Something stupid to make you laugh before the knives come out tonight on all sides over the Alabama results.

See what I mean about CNN alternately treating itself as a fearless soldier for truth and a whimpering child bullied by the president as circumstances require? Acosta, the network’s most preening grandstander, is almost *glowing* at his own supposed bravery in ignoring an empty threat from Sarah Huckabee Sanders to shout a question at Trump at a photo op that the president didn’t bother to answer. It’s very important to him that you know that he was warned not to ask his question and he did anyway. Important enough to mention it during his limited airtime in chatting with Wolf Blitzer.

But just in case any of his Twitter fans weren’t in front of a TV at the moment, he beamed it out on social media too.

Prior to this morment, @presssec issued a warning to me. She said if I asked a question of Trump at the bill signing "I can't promise you will be allowed into a pool spray again." Sorry Sarah.. we won't be intimidated. https://t.co/RZgJpXpyEg

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) December 12, 2017

He’s so proud of himself, but then he always is. His question must have involved a matter of momentous urgency too to risk being barred from future White House events. Was it about North Korea? Russiagate and obstruction of justice? The report in today’s New Yorker claiming that Trump has all but accepted Assad’s continued tenure as leader of Syria for the duration of his presidency?

Nah. He asked what Trump meant in his tweet about Kirsten Gillibrand when he said she’d do anything for a campaign contribution. His one shot at putting POTUS on the spot with a tough question in front of the cameras was essentially to ask if he was calling a woman senator a whore. Trump, had he chosen to answer, obviously would have said, “Of course not,” making the question worthless as news but valuable if your goal is to show the audience how righteously furrowed your brow is. Jim knows how to play the cable-news game.

And because of that, he’ll never be barred from any White House photo ops. He craves media martyrdom at Trump’s hands and Sanders must know it. Banning him for asking Trump a question would be tantamount to throwing him into the briar patch, giving him that much more time to go on CNN every afternoon and shake his head sadly at What America Has Come To because he’s no longer allowed to posture at big presidential events.