Commenting on Sean Spicer’s cameo appearance at the Emmy’s on Sunday night at Stephen Colbert’s invitation, Brian Stelter writes: Journalists, activists and celebrities said they didn’t think it was funny to treat Spicer’s mendacious behavior like a throwaway laugh line.

The actor Zach Braff tweeted: “I’m not ready to laugh ‘with’ Sean Spicer. I think he is an evil, opportunistic liar that hurt our country.”

The MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell commented that the Emmys “helped Spicer pump up his ‘lecture’ fees, which is all that matters to him now.”

While many of the objections came from liberals, some conservatives also made arguments against the skit.

“I know people who were offered opportunities to lie for Donald Trump and quietly declined. Harvard & The Emmys calling the wrong folks,” former Jeb Bush spokesman Tim Miller tweeted.

Among the counter-arguments: It was just a joke. And besides, wasn’t Spicer actually admitting to his and Trump’s dishonesty through comedy?

Colbert is an outspoken opponent of President Trump, and he doesn’t fret about the perception that he’s “normalizing” Spicer. “Donald Trump normalized Spicer,” a source involved in the production said. [Continue reading…]

Some will argue that anyone who has been a committed and vocal member of Team Trump must first humbly atone for their sins before they can hope for redemption, but frankly it would be hard to believe anyone who claimed they didn’t fully grasp the nature of the enterprise in which they had freely participated.

For that reason, I don’t think there should be any kind of litmus test to determine whether such individuals show signs of a newly awakened conscience. What is more important is that a signal be sent to those who remain in Trump’s grasp that there is the possibility of life after Trump.

The alternative — one that Trump himself would dearly like those around him to believe — is that if/when he goes down, they will all inevitably go down with him.

The message Sean Spicer is sending, either by his intention or that of those who are now “normalizing” him, is that association with Donald Trump does not have to result in eternal damnation.

As for anyone in the mainstream media who wants to get sanctimonious about Spicer cashing in on his White House tenure, let’s not forget that a ratings-driven media loves Trump just as much as it professes to hate him.