I shouldn’t even be writing about this completely silly and worthless story. It exemplifies, however, the cesspool that we are going to be dunked in for all of the next year. Here’s how it goes:

ACT I

The mainstream news media decided to exploit the Christmas season as an opportunity to take a cheap shot at Donald Trump, since that is considered the patriotic duty of anyone who has ever had contact with him, and because he is a threat to democracy. So, as Columbus’s twin “Home Alone” movies were au courrant once again, Rolling Stone and some other enterprising Trump-bashers dredged up a three-year old Business Insider interview in which has-been movie director Chris Columbus, apparently looking to curry favor with the monolithic woke Hollywood community, revealed that Trump had “bullied” his way into the cameo he performed during “Home Alone 2.”

This 31-year old nothing-burger was viewed as newsworthy in 2023 by USA Today, Vanity Fair, the Daily Beast…it’s everywhere. And the story is nonsense. Trump owned the Manhattan luxury hotel, the Plaza, where some of the film was shot. He made the film’s use of the locale conditional on him having a walk-on in the film. That’s not “bullying.” There are lots of fancy hotels in New York. The Hollywood crew could have said “no.”

Furthermore, Trump couldn’t do anything if Columbus, the film’s director, decided to cut the bit. It’s a non-story about a non-event. Never mind: the idea is to keep hammering on the “bully” /”autocrat,”/ “dictator” /”fascist”/”Hitler” theme until the 2024 election. The extent of the Trump Derangement virus among its sufferers is something to behold. They are really irritated by Trump appearing in the Christmas movie for all of five seconds to give Kevin McCallister ( Macaulay Culkin) directions to the Plaza Lobby. Rolling Stone calls the moment “one of the most poorly-aged cameos in Christmas movie history.” That is literally the opposite of the truth. Most cameos in any movie are incomprehensible three decades later: the “surprise appearance” isn’t a surprise because almost nobody remembers who that now-expired celebrity was. The Trump cameo in “Home Alone 2” makes a bigger impression now than it did to non-New Yorkers in 1992.

ACT 2

Trump, having the thinnest skin of any politician in memory and unable to resist striking back at even the dumbest criticism, immediately denied Columbus’s account...of what happened more than 30 years ago. He wrote on Truth Social that Columbus and the producers were “begging me to make a cameo appearance in ‘Home Alone 2.’”:

“They rented the Plaza Hotel in New York, which I owned at the time. I was very busy, and didn’t want to do it. They were very nice, but above all, persistent. I agreed, and the rest is history! That little cameo took off like a rocket, and the movie was a big success, and still is, especially around Christmas time. People call me whenever it is aired….That cameo helped make the movie a success, but if they felt bullied, or didn’t want me, why did they put me in, and keep me there, for over 30 years? Because I was, and still am, great for the movie, that’s why! Just another Hollywood guy from the past looking for a quick fix of Trump publicity for himself!”

I suspect that Trump’s assessment of Columbus’s claim is accurate, but his own claim that his cameo had something to do with the film’s success is ridiculous. Other than Trump’s immediate family, if them, I doubt if a dozen people bought tickets to “Home Alone 2” because Trump appears in it. So this kerfuffle over nothing stands as one more (out of thousands) example of Trump engaging in outrageous boasting and exaggeration.

ACT 3

The mainstream news media treated this idiocy like the Second Coming. Why? Because they think it makes Trump look bad, and they will grab at the flimsiest of straws to try to rescue Joe Biden from his ineptitude. The media didn’t leap on Hunter Biden’s laptop with a tenth of this enthusiasm. Nor Tara Reade’s accusation of sexual assault against Biden. Nor many, many other stories of far more significance, because almost any story has more significance than the circumstances surrounding Donald Trump’s walk-by in a thirty-year old comedy. Rolling Stone, which is well into its self-parody stage, actually implies in its breathless report that the cameo was a stepping stone to the White House, writing, “Of course, Trump would later leverage his screen experience into a starring role on the Mark Burnett-produced reality TV series The Apprentice, thereby establishing him as even more of a household name and creating a pathway for him to pursue the presidency in 2016. But back then, it seems his aspirations were no more grandiose than wanting a five-second walk-on in a kids’ movie.”

This is where we are today in American journalism and politics. The Trump-Deranged, Trump himself, and the irresponsible news media are going to make living in the U.S. for the next year a living hell for all of us. A three-year-old interview about a 30-year-old movie turned into a three day news story because it could be weaponized against Donald Trump….even though the weapon is a pea-shooter.