“Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it.”

So said first lady Melania Trump via Twitter in response to a university professor’s unfortunate invoking of Mrs. Trump’s son, Barron, during testimony today before the House Judiciary Committee.

Professor Karlan said that while it is all right for the president to name his son “Barron,” he couldn’t “make him a baron.”

That drew the expected criticism.

Frankly, she deserved to take the hit for the remark, for which she apologized.

Now, this likely won’t quell the critics. It should, but they’ll continue to yammer at her. We have learned in this political climate that apologies often never go far enough to absolve someone from the transgression they commit.

In this instance, Pamela Karlan’s mistake was clearly defined. Politicians’ children should be off limits … always! She crossed a line that was equally defined.

I am heartened to have listened to her apology as she made it. I am guessing Karlan might have known of the consequence of that mistake the moment she uttered it.

The heated debate in Washington is only going to get even hotter as this impeachment matter progresses toward a full vote in the House of Representatives. The president and his key aides have provided all by themselves the world with plenty of grist for which they can be criticized.

The president’s young son is way off limits.