CARLTON FLETCHER: Breaking News! President sends mean tweet!

We all know that crap is king, we need dirty laundry.

— Don Henley

Walter Cronkite has to be spinning in his grave.

It was Cronkite, and other real TV journalists of his era — men like Chet Huntley and David Brinkley — who brought credibility to their profession by presenting what was, for the most part, an unslanted take on the important news stories of a very important era in American history.

What passes for TV journalism now, at least on the major and cable news networks whose political agendas and ratings gimmicks are priority, is not even a reasonable facsimile.

The latest kerfuffle that has the media — especially the talking heads on the boob tube — all a-twitter is, well, Donald Trump’s “mean tweets” about some reality TV show hosts on Twitter.

The Fox Newses of the airwaves waste what you would think would be valuable air time defending Trump’s right to tweet what he wants, while the CNNs are ready to hold impeachment hearings over what amounts to triviality, over some silliness that Trump tweeted.

A couple of points here:

1) I mean this in the nicest way, but Donald Trump is … ummm, let’s be careful here … well, an anatomical reference that sounds a lot like “glass bowl.” But he’s never tried to be anything else. His platform during his improbable presidential run was, essentially, “I’m the biggest glass bowl in this race.”

America decided it was time to elect a glass bowl, so his strategy came up aces.

That being the case, you’d think the “seasoned veteran journalists” wouldn’t take Trump’s thinly-veiled bait. He screws up one issue after another — a pretty common occurrence so far — and before the talking heads can get out their initial BREAKING NEWS! alert, the president unleashes some nonsense on Twitter, and that becomes the story.

Who cares about Russiagate? The latest budget debacle? Health care hell? Cabinet crazies? Trump’s tweeting again! Let’s go there — live.

The president has to be laughing his … well, glass off at the level of stupidity.

2) I was watching some dweeby-looking Republican lawmakers this weekend who’ve probably only been on TV at some baby-kissing county fair campaign event in Pig’s Knuckle, Iowa — or on C-SPAN — who were all too glad to express their “outrage” at Trump’s mean tweets.

One of them said — and I’m not making this up: “The president should not do these things that demean the sanctity and integrity of the sacred office he holds.”

“Sanctity?” “Integrity?” “Sacred?” The U.S. presidency?

Let’s see … that’s the office held by a guy who shared a little more than his wisdom with a young intern … another guy who hired bungling crooks to break into his opponent’s campaign headquarters … a guy who had frequent visits from movie starlets who were not in the White House to do Hamlet … and that guy who hid behind a bunch of third-graders while the Twin Towers were crumbling to the ground … and, oh yeah, that guy who OK’d the trading of guns for drug money to support another country’s civil war.

It also should be noted, congressmen, that no group of people has more demeaned the integrity of a once-proud institution moreso than the members of the United States Congress. (Check out a guy named Mitch McConnell, boys.)

So you “journalists” keep making Donald Trump’s social media posts the big story of each news cycle. And you senators and representatives who are supposed to be looking out for the welfare of the people who elected you to office, you keep trying to sell that bull about the sanctity and dignity of the presidency.

The American people? Well, we know who the real glass bowls are.

Email [email protected] or follow on Twitter @ABH_Fletcher.