This isn’t a perfect world.

There. Having stipulated that, one element of a perfect world — would we ever achieve it — would be that journalists wouldn’t become part of the story they cover.

I prefer to think of journalists as, say, the football referee you never notice during the heat of the game. So it should be with those who cover the news.

Unfortunately, and this is more true about broadcast journalists than those who work in the print media, we see occasions when journalists become part of the story.

Stand up, Megyn Kelly. Take a bow.

Kelly had the temerity during this past week’s Republican presidential joint appearance, to ask Donald Trump about statements he’d made about women. He has referred to them in highly disparaging terms. Trump tried to slough it off by saying he referred only to Rosie O’Donnell. The crowd laughed.

Kelly, though, persisted with her question, which was a patently fair and pertinent question to the leading GOP presidential candidate.

Trump didn’t see it that way, saying the next day she had blood in her eyes and had “blood coming from her wherever.” The statement was reprehensible on its face. Republicans and Democrats alike have condemned the comment and demanded Trump’s apology to Kelly.

He then said Kelly, a Fox News anchor who was one of three network moderators at the Fox-sponsored joint appearance, should apologize to him for asking the question in the first place.

Kelly, though, said she won’t apologize for anything. She said she was employing “good journalism” in seeking an answer to a relevant question.

None of this should be about a journalist, whose job ought to be to stay out of the way. Megyn Kelly asked an appropriate question of a leading candidate for the presidency and got a proverbial pie in the face for doing her job.