The controversy over Kathy Griffin holding up a bloodied severed head of Donald Trump — an action which has led to her removal from CNN's New Year's Eve programming — reportedly spilled into the President's family when TMZ reported that the Trumps' 11-year son "Barron was in front of the TV watching a show when the news came on and he saw the bloody, beheaded image." TMZ says: "We're told he panicked and screamed, 'Mommy, Mommy!'"

I was hoping against hope that the level of "discourse" hasn't sunk to the point where people who should know better would start attacking Barron or using him to criticize the Trumps. Rosie O'Donnell and several others who should know better dashed those hopes Wednesday afternoon.

I should have known that O'Donnell would among those who couldn't help themselves.

In late November, she "shared a video that suggested that ... Barron might be autistic." She linked to "a seven-minute video compiling clips from the Republican National Convention, the presidential debates, and Trump’s acceptance speech that suggested (that then) 10-year-old Barron might be showing signs of autism."

She defended what she did for three days, suggesting, among other things, as described by the Washington Times, that "that Barron was fair game because Mr. Trump is president-elect."

It's amazing how quickly some on the left moved from "leave them alone" with Barack Obama's daughters to "Trump's boy is fair game."

Over a week after her initial speculation, O'Donnell finally apologized to Melania Trump (but apparently not to the President-elect): "I apologize to @MELANIATRUMP - i was insensitive in my RT - i am sorry for the pain i caused - it was not my intent - i am truly sorry."

Earlier Wednesday, O'Donnell responded to the TMZ report by using Barron's reported reaction to go after his father (HT Twitchy):

O'Donnell is referring to the two men killed in Portland by a far-left Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein supporter. There is no way one can make sense of her claim that the man's hatred was "promoted by his (Barron's) father." But that's not the point. The point is to tie Donald Trump to any and every possible expression of hate, and to then hope that many of those who see her post don't learn the truth.

Others are calling the TMZ report "fake news" and accusing those who are giving it any credibility of hypocrisy. One of them is April Reign, who is Managing Editor of Broadway Black and Editor-at-Large of Nu Tribe Magazine, with the following pair of tweets (links here and here):

Peter S. Hall, a Senior Editor for Movies.com and Fandango, joined the "fake news" chorus and added a truly disgusting twist:

To his credit, Hall has apologized: "You're right. It's unfair to single a kid out. I apologize and I deleted it."

To his detriment, what would possess anyone who has a very young son himself to publish that horrible tweet in the first place?

Ken Jennings, who became famous as a Jeopardy contestant and has apparently used that fame to opportunistically promote his unhinged views, defended Griffin yesterday and went full sarcasm today, implying that an 11 year-old should be able to handle what he allegedly saw.

Grounds for reader outrage would include the number of people who liked Jennings' Wednesday tweet:

Conservative author and chief investment officer of TrendMacro Don Luskin had the perfect reaction to Jennings, and it really applies to everyone out there going after Barron Trump over his reported reaction to the Griffin incident or using the reporting about him to attack his parents and his family:

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.