On: Donald Trump bans three media outlets from the White House, accusing them of...

I’ve been run off from better places than the White House - a saloon in Amarillo, a dance hall in Tulsa - and I learned the same thing every time: the story follows you out the door.

Three newspapers got told Friday they can’t come inside no more. The charge was fake news. The sentence was the sidewalk.

A reporter don’t need the room to write about the room. He needs the room to like him. Put him out on the curb and he writes what the wind tells him, and the wind was blowing wrong before anybody bought a padlock.

Every administration prunes that guest list. One party does it with a smile and a telephone that never rings back, the other with a bolt cutter. Same list, different hardware, and the gallery pays for the seats either way.

Now I don’t know much about running a big house, but on the ranch, when a steer wouldn’t come to the branding pen, we never got anywhere by locking the gate. All we done was teach the rest of the herd to keep one eye on us. You can’t rope a story down. It goes under the fence like water.

And here’s what puzzles my simple head: if the news is fake, why not let the fellas in and let them watch it come out real? A man sure of his corn don’t hide the field from the county agent.

They say the three will sue. Good. A deposition is the longest interview anybody gives in that town, and it don’t get edited.

Door’s still standing. News is still outside. Both will outlast the lock.