CNN CREW JOKES ABOUT TRUMP PLANE CRASHING BEFORE CARRIER SPEECH.

Having worked a millennia ago just out of college on a few live remote video crews for local TV stations, I know firsthand they can be a black-humored bunch. Snaking cables and setting up cameras, tripods, and mic feeds is a tough job, and I’m not losing much sleep over their joke, the Trump-era equivalent of President Reagan’s “the bombing begins in five minutes” quip when he thought his mic wasn’t live. But it is a reminder that CNN’s on-air crew – on a network that made its bones with a long-running shouting match of a series called Crossfire — attempted to lecture all of us back in January in 2011 to eat our veggies, be better people, and not use evil nasty words words like “crosshairs,” back when Sarah Palin’s clip art was being held responsible by the magical-thinking left for an attack on a Democratic senator and other victims in Tucson:

On Tuesday’s John King USA, CNN’s John King issued a prompt on-air apology minutes after a guest on his program used the term “crosshairs” during a segment: “We’re trying to get away from using that kind of language.”

Huh — curiously, CNN’s management evidently never sent that memo to their crews.