Oh, the virtue-signaling was hot and heavy as conservative and ostensibly "libertarian" media outlets competed to see who come up with the most self-righteously abusive rhetoric to describe North Korean Politburo member Kim Yo Yong, sister to Kim Jong Un. BuzzFeed grabbed the prize with "a garbage monster" – BuzzFeed being an expert when it comes to garbage. Reason's Nick Gillespie could hardly contain his joy at the fusillade of hatred: "It was younger media outlets and personalities such as Buzzfeed and CNN's Jake Tapper that called bullshit on such stories." In Gillespie's world, "young" is a synonym for good, because the young and the stupid will inherit the earth. Tapper is one of the War Party's most fulsome cheerleaders, and BuzzFeed's working relationship with the US State Department during the Obama administration was pretty brazen: but if Gillespie means young and dumb, or young and bought off, then perhaps he's right.

"If you hate US leaders more than you hate the Kim Jong-un regime," tweeted Tapper the tool, "you really need to read up on North Korea" and he helpfully "supplied a link to Human Rights Watch's analysis of North Korea." Hatred of foreign bogeymen is what Tapper, Gillespie, and all those no-longer-quite-so-young media mavens deal in: we're supposed to hate Kim Yo Yong, those North Korean cheerleaders, and anyone who isn't in a tizzy about "North Korean propaganda" supposedly broadcast by the media. Because, you see, simply showing a smiling and attractive Kim Yo Yong next to the dour and ill-at-ease Mike Pence is "perversely fawning" over the former.