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Keller @ Large: A Reminder Of What's Intolerable

BOSTON (CBS) - Let's see if we can make this perfectly clear – leave Barron Trump alone!

Barron is the ten-year-old son of our new President and First Lady. He, like all presidential children who are underage and not political activists, deserves privacy.

But this simple standard was too much for a Saturday Night Live writer who tweeted out a derogatory quip about young Barron based on his appearance that is too crude for me to repeat. After major backlash, she deleted her Twitter feed and issued an apology.

"It was inexcusable," she wrote.

How about intolerable?

While we're at it, here are a few more guidelines to what's intolerable that it really shouldn't be necessary to remind people of:

• Flat-out lying: whether it's "if you like your plan you can keep your plan" or "Obama wasn't born in America," please make it stop. Notice how both of those tactical lies backfired on the liars involved.

• Sweeping, distorted attacks on whole groups of people. Most reporters I know are not "dishonest" or "disgusting," and shouldn't be characterized that way. Most Republicans I know do not want to throw your grandparents out into the snow, and should not be stereotyped as such.

There's plenty to criticize about both groups without resorting to slime.

• And one more: don't make it so personal.

If the battle of ideas isn't enough for you, why not stay out of politics, and spare the rest of us your narcissistic finger-pointing?

Listen to Jon's commentary:

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