EXTRA: Politically-speaking, when does a kid get to be a kid?

Insofar as I could see, Barron Trump was being a 10-year-old, which may be an obnoxious form of the human species, but nothing that we’d consider criminal.

How much of dad's blasts will land on son's shoulders

He fidgeted and squirmed and seemed to talk at times out of turn, but nothing that I haven’t seen many other kids of that age do.

SO I CAN kind of comprehend the offense being taken by some at people who dare to criticize the youngest of the Trump clan. There is a sense that we’re really focusing our ire at Donald J. by going after the most vulnerable of the family.

But I also have to question the motives of those who want to get all upset at anyone who dares point out the behavior of Barron – which from the bits I saw on television did border on the type of antics that, if I had done them as a kid, would have gotten me a threat of the back of my mother’s hand across my face.

How many of these same people all eager to praise Barron Trump and defend his honor are the same people all upset that there weren’t tons of reports about the Obama daughters.

No one could possibly be as clean as Malia and Sasha were during their eight years of living in the White House, is what they want to believe. It has to be a cover-up of illicit activity by the Obama brats, as they want to see it.

OF COURSE, THERE also are the outlandish stories that some people like to spew (and claim that accounts denying their legitimacy are the ultimate in “fake news”) about how the Obama daughters are adopted as part of a cover-up over the phoniness of the Obama marriage.

Would Barron's defenders have protected Obama girls?

In those stories, now former First Lady Michelle Obama is transvestite and “Barry” is just the ultimate freak! Nonsense, to be sure, but I wonder how many of those ideologues willing to defile an entire family’s reputation are now talking about the righteousness of la familia Trump.

Even Chelsea defended Barron

Some will say that protecting Barron is the same as the way that former first daughter Chelsea Clinton was protected from the public eye. Heck, Chelsea herself has issued statements in recent days saying people should back off the Trump kid.

But there are others who will claim it was wrong to keep hands off of Chelsea in those days. I’d wonder how many think only conservative ideologue kids deserve a private life. Which in my mind cheapens the whole issue.

Patrick had his own incident as a kid

BESIDES, THERE ARE times when a political kid’s activities get into the public eye.

I still remember back to 1992 when Patrick Daley, the son of Mayor Richard M., used his parents’ trip to New York as an excuse to have a party at the family home in Grand Beach, Mich.

Like many teen parties, it got out of hand. There was property damage, a shotgun was brandished and one teen wound up getting hit over the head with a baseball bat.

I remember thinking at the time this didn’t deserve all that much attention; how many teen parties filled with stupid antics got coverage. Although I remember being told by some of my reporter colleagues that Daley, the mayor, had a sanctimonious attitude toward others in embarrassing circumstances, and therefore deserved similar treatment.

PERHAPS THAT IS the same line of thinking some are taking toward Trump. Although it may well be that getting that incident so thoroughly out in the open was to Patrick’s benefit. He’s 41 now, and most certainly doesn’t have this skeleton in his closet. It’s truly a thing of the past.

Has Amy outgrown youthful protection?

At what point, however, does a political kid become “fair game” for criticism? I wonder if Amy Blagojevich is about to learn that lesson.

She’s understandably P-O’ed that no one is taking seriously the desire of her father, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for a reduction of his 14-year prison sentence seriously.

But using Facebook this week to say that now-former President Obama was “selfish and spineless” for not granting his request for a pardon or sentence commutation? Those are just the kind of “fighting words” that are likely to make her the target of criticism herself – political “kid” or not.

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Trump brings bad name to people who want to lambast ‘politically correct’

I have always had my problems with people who want to complain that our society is too politically correct, or that politically correct is an abhorrent concept.

TRUMP: Won't listen to Mark Twain!

They try to make it seem like their viewpoints are somehow being censored; their attitudes are being silenced as part of some agenda that singles out people like themselves for abuse.

WHICH IS NONSENSE! As ought to be evidenced by the recent days of activity involving New York real estate developer Donald Trump’s fantasies about becoming U.S. president in next year’s election cycle.

If anything, Trump is giving us the classic example of what is wrong with people who want to complain about “political correctness” run amok. And I’ll be the first to admit I can be the most blunt of speakers at times.

Because Trump has tried claiming that the concept of political correctness is what is behind the people who want to criticize his attitudes toward women and the fact that Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly (whom I’ve had my own objections to at times) used the recent Republican presidential debate to call him out on it.

Trump wants us (the electorate) to think that he’s the victim. Because the fact that someone would criticize his demeaning thoughts about women (and they are truly demeaning). When he followed up with the comments that many interpreted to be about Kelly’s menstruation cycle (he now says he meant it was blood from her nose), he responded by claiming offense that anyone would think he was a “deviant” capable of being so crude and boorish.

THAT MAY BE the biggest laugh of this whole situation – that Trump would be amazed to learn that people don’t associate class and sophistication when they hear his name. As if all those gaudy structures he built throughout the years wasn’t enough evidence.

Scouring the used book stores for original PC

Now, Trump would like to turn this talk into a political correctness debate – claiming that his attitudes are being censored by that segment of the Republican Party that sees his campaigning as an embarrassment and a distraction to the remainder of the GOPers who have desires to run for president.

Except that he comes across the way too many people come off when they use the phrase “politically correct” as an epithet – it always seems like what bothers them is they can’t use words like “n----r” or “f----t” (as in the racial and homosexually-oriented slurs) without having other people around them crack down upon them for expressing their ignorance so clearly.

Proving the truth behind the old adage from author Mark Twain, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

EXCEPT THAT TRUMP seems determined every day to prove how much more foolish he can be – and how absurd it is that anybody takes his presidential talk seriously.

Is this really the face of a threat to our society?

It all reminds me of when I originally heard the “political correctness” phrase – some three decades ago when I was in college and the latest trend was to eliminate disparaging talk by replacing them with phrases that no person would use in natural speech.

People aren’t short, they’re height-challenged. They’re not bald, they’re follicle-challenged. Those phrases come across as nonsense-talk; they’re not a linguistic change I’m about to fight for. It was a fad that withered away quickly enough.

But that phrase has become the epithet that too many people use when they want to cut off opposition debate – the tyrants who think the whole world is supposed to shut up and do what they tell them to do.

BECAUSE THAT NOTION (which is one that I find to be as un-American as possible) better fits the Trump campaign mentality than any idea that he’s being picked on by women.

Which makes me think we’d all be better off if the Trump campaign were to go the way of other fads such as the pet rock, beanie babies or those people who used to dance the Macarena.

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Ebert film criticism TV program will live on, regardless of where or when it airs

Perhaps I’m about to age myself, but when I think of the concept of Roger Ebert on television offering mini-criticisms of current movies, the program that comes to my mind is “Sneak Previews.”

That is the PBS version that was WTTW-TV’s contribution to public television back in the 1970s (at times, it seemed like Boston’s WGBH produced everything else), which featured dueling film critics of Chicago’s two daily newspapers. It was obvious in those early days that Ebert of the Sun-Times and Gene Siskel of the Tribune felt some professional hostility toward each other that made for intellectually stimulating – and entertaining – viewing.

THEIR ARGUMENTS COULD get feisty in a way that just can’t be faked.

I even still remember “Spot, the Wonder Dog,” the canine buddy who was used to introduce the program-ending “Dog of the Week” segment where Siskel and Ebert would pick away at the week’s worst movie.

Because I remember what Ebert’s film criticism on television used to be, I have always considered all of the successor programs he and Siskel (and for the past eight years, Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper) did to be second-rate.

They were just too structured. Segments were so rigidly timed, and the disagreements were just too contrived. Such were the demands of commercial television programming in the United States.

THAT’S WHY I can’t get too worked up over the fact that Roeper and Ebert announced Monday they were leaving their current program – “At the Movies.”

Officials let it be known that the program’s producers would like the show to evolve from one of mini-film criticism to one of Hollywood entertainment news – almost like a slightly more news oriented “Entertainment Tonight.”

I have no doubt that such a program would attract a certain amount of ratings. Of course, Ebert & Roeper would have got better ratings if it aired in a better slot (10:30 p.m. on Saturday?) There’s always a certain demand for programs that delve into such in-depth issues as whether Salma Hayek’s breasts are naturally that big?

Personally, the thought of such a program makes me ill. I don’t see the need for it. I think there are enough outlets that provide celebrity trivia such as whether Katie Holmes is planning to take baby Suri and leave hubby Tom Cruise.

AND EVEN THE establishment news media outlets that like to think they are about celebrity news are delving more and more into the trivia. I couldn’t help but notice in accounts this week about proposed changes to the format of the Chicago Tribune is that the newspaper’s first section will be devoted to consumer and entertainment news, with the public affairs type reporting of Chicago and around the world being shifted to Section Number Two.

So I kind of derive some pleasure in hearing that Ebert and Roeper are not willing to take the big bucks they would have received from cooperating with such changes. They are willing to move on, even though having to structure a completely new program can be a hassle.

I couldn’t help but notice that Ebert, in discussing his move from the existing program, notes he and Siskel widow Marlene Iglitzen own the trademark to the symbol of “thumbs up” to recommend a film and “thumbs down” to reject one.

Any new program would probably try to feed off that symbol as a way to distinguish it from other programs that purport to offer film criticism.

SOME PEOPLE LIKE to argue against newspapers (and in favor of the Internet as a news transmission medium) by saying some stories are best told with audio and video. But some stories (usually the ones most worthy of being told) are best expressed with the written word.

Film criticism, I have always believed, is one of those genres that works best on the printed page. So much can be said in the 600-word essay that cannot be told in the two-minute-long video segment.

Two minutes can be about 90 words, and few details can be used in them without cluttering up copy. Even the existence of a snippet of film from the cinematic production makes up for the form’s shortcomings.

That is the problem with the current film criticism programs – even “At the Movies.” Just at the point when it seems like either Ebert or Roeper is about to get into some interesting thought about a film, his time is up.

WATCHING THE PROGRAM can feel like trying to comprehend several contrite reviews that don’t offer enough, rather that giving one detailed account that could help us understand what is worthy (or despicable) about some new cinematic release.

I can’t help but wonder if the future of an Ebert/Roeper pairing as television-oriented film critics is on some cable television network – some place where they won’t feel the need to cram seven or eight film reviews into a 22-minute program (the other eight minutes in the half-hour show are devoted to commercials that pay the bills).

For what it is worth, Roeper hinted that he has some future show in the works, but he would not offer details on Monday.

Seriously, I’d watch something that would allow Ebert to show off the knowledge of film he has acquired during the four-plus decades he has been the Sun-Times’ movie critic. That knowledge has always been what made his written reviews in the newspaper so interesting and enjoyable.

THAT KNOWLEDGE IS also what will make Ebert’s eventual passing such a loss to the public, similar to that suffered Monday with the death of one-time Sun-Times and Tribune baseball writer Jerome Holtzman, whose writing of the sport gave the public a detailed sense of the game’s joys and its business end. Who else can say they came up with the statistics that make relief pitchers worth paying attention to?

The sad thing is that Ebert’s eventual obituary (which hopefully will not need to be edited into publishable shape for several more years) will focus on his role in making television-oriented criticism of film a commercially acceptable premise, instead of reminding us of his role in helping us to understand the joy that one can experience just by sitting in a darkened auditorium to watch a classic cinematic experience on the big screen – particularly if accompanied by a big tub of popcorn or a box of Snow Caps (my personal favorite).

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Ebert & Roeper will try to move on to a new program about (http://www.suntimes.com/business/1066861,feder072108.article) film criticism.

My personal dirty secret of Internet surfing? There are times I will weed my way through (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/) Roger Ebert’s archive of old film reviews as a way of passing time in an interesting manner.