I spend enough time knee-deep in ridiculous celebrity gossip that I've learned how to laugh off most of it. But truthfully, this whole thing about Donald Trump running for President profoundly disturbs me. As you probably know, apparently unfulfilled by his riches and reality TV stardom, The Donald has been throwing around the idea of running for the big office for a few months now. Politics aside, his regular appearances on The Apprentice as an unquestionably bossy, bull-headed, greedy, tactless megalomaniac are enough to make this a horrifying prospect to me, though (I'd like to think) an unrealistic one.

But lately Trump has really ramped up the pre-presidential blathering, spouting off new (to him) hyper-conservative viewpoints to back up his hopeful candidacy for the Republican Party. The once pro-choice, pro-gay rights mogul now staunchly claims to be pro-life and anti-gay marriage, as well as the latest fervent researcher into the whole "Obama was born in Kenya" birther thing. And he can't keep his story straight--probably because he doesn't actually believe what he claims to believe today.

Now, we're not here to get into politics. This is a TV blog. But right behind the wave of news stories about how Trump might actually have a shot at the Republican nomination (yikes!), comes the theory from one NBC exec that this whole thing is a stunt aimed at improving ratings, and his next contract, for The Celebrity Apprentice. Hence why Trump made the announcement that he'll make an announcement on the May 22 Apprentice finale -- and what will that announcement be? Why, that he'll be making another announcement later! Translation: On the finale of his silly reality competition series, Trump will stop the goings-on to reveal "the future date upon which he actually will announce whether he's running for president." And the speculation now is that he will announce he is not running. (When that moment comes, should I be relieved or furious? How about both? Yeah, both sounds right.)

Pretending to run for the very important, very real, very powerful position of President and claiming a whole new political philosophy just to trick people into watching your TV show and get more money out of a network? Now THAT I find even more horrifying than if Trump were running for real.

I bring up all of this for one reason. Well, two. First to tell you how morally complicated this has made my Celebrity Apprentice hate-love-watching. And second, to illustrate that this "official endorsement" from axed apprentice Gary Busey -- which includes a trademark "Buseyism" for Trump's name, though I don't see this one selling a lot of bumper stickers, sorry Gary -- isn't even the worst, silliest, most poorly advised thing about Trump's faux pre-pre-campaign. And that's saying something!


Taking
Redirection
Understanding
Massive
Power.

Shudder.

(Image courtesy of ABC)