Networks end their boycott for CNN before the White House ends its ban on CNN

…(cont) On September 23, a federal judge — Trump-appointed, worth saying once and moving on — questioned whether "national security" could ever justify banning a news outlet from a briefing room. That's a fair question for a courtroom. It is not the same as an answer, and the administration did not treat it as one.

On September 24, the judge ordered access restored to all three outlets immediately. Temporary restraining order. Likelihood of success on the merits. That same day, CBS News covered the Trump-Xi meeting without television pool coverage, because the order and the reality on the ground were not the same document.

Now it's September 27, and the New York Times reports the networks are resuming coverage. Not because CNN got its badge back — CNN has not. Because, in the Times' phrasing, an indefinite suspension may be untenable. Untenable for whom is the question nobody in that room is required to answer out loud.

So the boycott that ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox staged in solidarity with CNN is ending. The ban it was staged against is not. CNN is still outside the gate. The networks that walked out with CNN are walking back in without it. I want to call that a coincidence of timing. It isn't. It's the entire story, and I said "coincidence" because that's the word that was supposed to go here.

A judge doubts the justification. The pool resumes anyway. CNN stays banned. Read that sentence again — it does not get less true on a second pass.