Emmys reveal that maybe joke was on us

himself in on the joke. And being enabled by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, many of whose members reportedly mobbed him at the after-party. Talk show host James Corden even planted a kiss on his cheek.

It was almost anticlimactic the next day when Spicer told the New York Times that “of course” he regrets haranguing reporters about the size of the inauguration crowd.

One wonders what, exactly, we are supposed to do with that. Are we supposed to laugh off all those times he stood there insisting right was left, lies were truth and two plus two equaled macadamia nuts?

In a way, it makes sense that Spicer sought redemption in a room full of actors. An actor, after all, must dedicate himself to a fiction, make himself believe the lie in order that he might sell it to you.

But an actor is only trying to convince you he’s a superhero or starship captain. Spicer was trying to convince America that the most prodigious liar in presidential history was some oracle of consistent truth.

The former press secretary was selling bovine excreta, knew he was selling bovine excreta, yet acted like you were the fool if you did not acknowledge it as gold.

And now he walks out onstage, does this comedic bit, and we’re supposed to treat it all as some harmless, meta joke? That feels cynical and slimy. It feels bereft of principle. And it suggests we have crossed the line between laughing at a joke and being one.

I mean, who’s laughing at whom here? Are we laughing with him about the fact that you can no longer trust a word the White House says — or is he laughing at us for how little that apparently means? Maybe we’re all the butt of this joke. Maybe truth is the butt of this joke.

I’m disappointed in the Television Academy. I’m also embarrassed that I laughed. Sean Spicer is one of the reasons we live in a nation filled with millions of angry, frightened, and deeply misinformed people. And yes, funny does cover a multitude of sins.

That’s not one of them.