Baldwin's Name Calling: It's a Family Affair

Another UPDATE at bottom of post.

Alleged actor Alec Baldwin can be pretty vicious, at least verbally. He's called Vice President Dick Cheney "a lying, thieving Oil Whore." During the Clinton impeachment, he said: “If we were living in another country, what we, all of us together, would go down to Washington and stone (Republican Congressman) Henry Hyde to death, stone him to death, stone him to death! Then we would go to their house and we’d kill the family, kill the children.” (see update below for MRC coverage of same)

Kill the children? A typically measured, thoughtful comment from a member of the Hollywood Left. So perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that Baldwin's contempt for children extends even to his own.

Today at SFGate.com, Associated Press entertainment writer Sandy Cohen reports on a recent voice mail message left by Baldwin for his 11-year-old daughter. He tells her "You are a rude, thoughtless little pig" and "You don't have the brains or the decency as a human being."

*****Updated by Noel Sheppard: Audio available here.

He goes on: "I don't give a damn that you're 12 years old, or 11 years old, or that you're a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the ass who doesn't care about what you do as far as I'm concerned. You have humiliated me for the last time with this phone."

The voice mail apparently was leaked by Baldwin's former wife and mother of the young girl, actress Kim Basinger. The propriety of releasing that voice mail can be questioned, but one thing is clear: Alec Baldwin is no Ward Cleaver.

Ms. Basinger once said of her then-husband, "When he starts having these conversations about politics, I run in the bathroom and turn up the radio as loud as I can."

Sounds like good advice for the rest of us.

*****Update by Ken Shepherd: Here's MRC's coverage of Alec Baldwin's foaming-at-the-mouth rant about "stoning Henry Hyde" from 1998. (Video available here) NewsBusters editor and MRC vice president Brent Baker wrote about this on the Dec. 15, 1998, CyberAlert:

Serious political commentary that should be condemned, or a humorous skit? As reports circulating the Internet have asserted, on Friday’s Late Night with Conan O’Brien on NBC actor Alec Baldwin jumped from his chair to scream "We would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and we’d kill their wives and their children!"

Baldwin is a well-known defender of Clinton who held a fundraiser for him last summer at his Long Island home. Monday night on CNBC’s Upfront Tonight he charged that "the ultimate goal" of impeachment advocates "is what I would call ‘election nullification’" as "this is a group of people who want to undo the ‘96 election."

On the December 11 NBC show host Conan O’Brien wrapped up his interview with Baldwin by asking Baldwin about Clinton’s plight. Baldwin answers but as he proceeds his voice rises as he jumps up from his chair and is screaming and flailing his arms by the time he’s finished. Cutting to the punch line, O’Brien then jumps up and puts an air mask over Baldwin’s mouth to calm him down. Funny political satire or, even if meant in jest, mean-spirited and violence-inciting words that would be condemned if uttered by a conservative?

Here’s the exchange as transcribed by MRC news analyst Paul Smith.

Conan O’Brien: "Before we leave, I gotta ask you. It’s no secret that you are very political. You are a very political person.

It’s no secret that you have actually had some associations with the Clintons. That you’re a liberal man and I thought you know today, this is a historic day and you’re one of the most politically active actors out there. What do you think?"

Alec Baldwin: "I was in Africa. I go to Africa. I mean ladies and gentlemen I am in Africa. For three months I am in the bush and I come back. I come back here and I come back to what? I mean what is happening right now as we speak? Right now the Judiciary Committee, the President has an approval rating of 68 percent. The President is very popular and things are going pretty good and they are voting to impeach the President. They voted on one article of impeachment already. And I come back from Africa to stained dresses and cigars and this and impeachment. I am thinking to myself in other countries they are laughing at us twenty four hours a day and I’m thinking to myself if we were in other countries, we would all right now, all of us together, [starts to shout] all of us together would go down to Washington and we would stone Henry Hyde to death! We would stone him to death! [crowd cheers] Wait! Shut up! Shut up! No shut up! I’m not finished. We would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and we’d kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families. [stands up screaming] What is happening in this country? What is happening? UGHHH UGHHH!!!!"

Now, in your mind substitute the name Al Gore or Hillary Clinton for Henry Hyde and the name of a conservative for Baldwin. What kind of reaction would the media establishment be expressing?