Stop that cameo.

Matt Drudge managed to get John McCain to talk about him on the Leno show by calling the movie he did a cameo in a "boob raunch fest." McCain even went to the trouble to have a dorky joke written to defend against the boob barb. ("In Washington, I work with boobs every day.") Now, I suppose, McCain looks cool.

Just last week, Entertainment Weekly slammed nonactor celebrities -- including Leno -- for doing all those vanity cameos:

In Bewitched, James Lipton makes a cameo appearance as an oily interviewer of movie stars with his own infotainment television show -- which is to say, as himself, fawning host of Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio. Only in this case, instead of coaxing deep thoughts about craft from real thespians, he urges a fictional, shallow movie star, played by Will Ferrell, to relive past flops.

This must stop. Lipton's show is its own mesmerizing bonfire of the vanities, but the gimmick of casting pop-cultural celebs as themselves in fictional situations has become the lazy filmmaker's shortcut to meta chuckles; it's also a depressing index of who's willing to shill his reputation. Regis Philbin plays Regis Philbin in Miss Congeniality 2, Jay Leno plays Jay Leno in Mr. 3000, James Carville plays James Carville in Old School, and it's the rare plot involving media coverage that doesn't include Larry King. For the love of self- respect! Quizmasters, ringmasters, and moguls (I'm talking to you, Alex Trebek, Al Sharpton, and Donald Trump), keep it real!

And now Drudge had to go and say "boob raunch fest" and make those things seem exciting again.