Wasn't like those under Bush or Obama were any good either. All press secretaries are awful- it's in the nature of their job to be terrible, they have to lie, obfuscate, embiggen, spin and generally be untrustworthy- and the Bush/ Obama ones at least had the advantage of a more orthodox approach from their boss, and a far less overtly hostile press- even term 2 Bush.
Then again, when I see 'alternative facts' I know that it isn't a new phenomenon- Obama's PR blithely defended the murder of civilians with drones, massaged the numbers, 'forgot' to include a significant number of them in stats (only for them to be rediscovered once he left office) etc. Sure, that's different from Spicer overestimating the numbers at Trump's inauguration, Obama's underestimation of the number of civilians he killed was greater than Spicer's overestimation and was referring to people actually dying as opposed to turning up to be bored by politicians talking for hours.
I guess there are professional lies, i.e. almost every government statements, and then all this nonsense from Trump - inept dishonesty is disappointing. Well and trying to be shifty about stuff that doesn't matter.