Posted on 04/30/2007 12:35:26 PM PDT by Caleb1411
Every day, I try to remember to thank God for life's many blessings. It's a checklist of sorts:
Health is good.
Check.
Kids are great.
Check.
Never married Alec Baldwin.
Check. Check. Check.
Whew. Some blessings just bring on a boatload of gratitude.
Baldwin is getting lots of attention, but I suspect it's not the kind he was hoping for after he left a vicious voice-mail message attacking his 11-year-old daughter for not answering their prearranged call. The actor packed a lot of vitriol into two minutes and 19 seconds, and it's a message that his daughter surely must be trying to forget. That seems unlikely now that millions of Americans have been able to hear her father's rant, too, on an endless loop of broadcasts on TV, radio and the Internet.
We got to hear Baldwin rant with breathtaking hostility toward his daughter, Ireland. His rage, peppered with profanity, was all her fault, he said. He told her he didn't care that she was a child, and after adding that she didn't have "the brains or the decency of a human being," he ended his poor-Daddy diatribe with this snarling indictment: "You're a rude, thoughtless little pig."
The first time I heard that phone message, my own eyes started to sting. It's the rare woman who can't conjure up memories of her own pre-adolescent insecurities - my own list could wrap around the Earth and end in a bow - and at that moment I wanted to hit the delete button before Baldwin's daughter could check her calls. An irrational response, of course, but you don't call any female a pig and expect logic to reign. How is it that we even know about Baldwin's nasty voice-mail message? Well, an unidentified somebody leaked it to the celebrity Web log TMZ.com. Baldwin's ex-wife, actress Kim Basinger, denies she is that somebody, but suspicions abound in light of the publicly contentious custody battle they have waged since 2002. After five years of their high-flying dirty laundry, the only obvious finding of fact is that an innocent child has become a pawn in yet another ugly divorce.
Now is as good a time as any to remind all you fathers of young daughters just what power you have. The studies are done, the findings conclusive: No matter how much a mother praises her daughter, if a father regularly tells her that she is beautiful, smart and precious, she is far more likely to believe it. In fact, she'll not only believe you, she'll look to marry a man just like you. That ought to scare Baldwin into anger management real fast.
Baldwin apologized for his tirade on his Web site. "I'm sorry, as everyone who knows me is aware, for losing my temper with my child," he wrote. "I have been driven to the edge by parental alienation for many years now."
Someone needs to point out that steering wheel in Baldwin's hands and remind him that he's the one who took the U-turn off the high road. No matter how cruel an ex-wife gets - and some ex-wives rival the spawn of Satan when it comes to cruelty - no one can drive a father to badger and belittle his little girl. He makes that trip on his own.
As for his public apology, it's wasted on us. We aren't the victims here, and the real victim needs a lot of mending. As my mother used to warn, some things you say you can't take back. Your tongue lets loose and from then on you're performing triage, hoping that some day the bleeding will stop.
Of course, the public does have a role here. We have a long memory when it comes to other people's stumbles, which means there's an 11-year-old girl named Ireland who will never be allowed to forget what her father said to her just as she was toeing the cliff of adolescence. That plunge is a lot harder when you're pushed by the guy who's supposed to catch you on the way down.
We don't know what, if anything, Baldwin has learned from his mistake. But maybe, just maybe, some other fathers will take the lesson to heart.
He will pay his penance by being an advocate for ‘parental alienation’.
What a maroon...
Personally, I'd like hear the other side of the story.
If the kid really is a snot, it might temper our outrage.
Don't forget his "Stone Henry Hyde" tirade.
I haven’t heard the call and don’t plan to, but it’s hard for me to get too worked up about what some Dad yells at his kid in frustration, even if the Dad is Alec Baldwin. If the kid’s mom isn’t making a huge deal out of it the kid has probably forgotten it by now.
those kinds of words are like a dagger to the heart of a very young person.....calling them little hitheads would be more appropriate if you're into calling children names, which I am not....
those kinds of words are like a dagger to the heart of a very young person.....calling them little hitheads would be more appropriate if you're into calling children names, which I am not....
THAT’S THE ONE I SAW!!!!!!!! It must be true then :)
Nope! Not for what he said, nor the way he said it. Sorry, there's no excuse for that kind of behavior from a father toward his daughter (or son, for that matter).
The guy's a jerk. There's no excuse for his behavior. None!
Yes, but it’s on your computer screen really. Make it a straight merciful shot to the hard drive, and say a prayer.;)
The kid is 11, so no matter what kind of ‘snot’ she is, the degree of venom was inappropriate.
“Don’t forget his “Stone Henry Hyde” tirade.”
Just in case anyone wants to read it again, this is from www.celiberal.com:
“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 24 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, yelling] What is happening in this country? What is happening? UGHHH!”
Nah. The one I saw was outside the window. I'd never shoot my computer screen (or the HDD). A flying pig outside; well, that's something else again :)
Yeah, I see an eating disorder in that kids future :(
No one who loves their kids says stuff like that to them. The court should slap him with a permanent injunction and let Ireland cut off any further relationship with the a**hole — forever, if she so desires (except Ireland should retain a claim on the bastard’s assets if and when the Lord sends him home... And we all know where that is and it ain’t North).
The wounds he inflicted on his daughter will never heal. They aren't 'just words'.
Believe me, I know!
Please read before exploding.
And I do recall other threads where some of us were suggesting that 11 year-old girl packs that commit homicides should be referred to as crimiinals rather than "girls."
Don't give me this 11 year old innocent stuff.
Enough of the whining claptrap over a Dad angry at his kid.
Just maybe the little girl was being an inconsiderate little pig and needed to be told so.
Neither you. I nor anyone but her Dad really knows what the heck went.
I dislike the guys politics.. I think he is another big mouth media sack. But He can raise his kid any way he sees fit..other than beating her with bat or the like.
Why did the She Hag Mom put this out in the public?
For her own selfish self centered purpose.
That tells me more about this case and what a lying manipulative, vindictive sack of human crap the Mom is than anything else.. She is the problem and is using the child as a weapon to harm the Father..She just did and stand self convicted by the release of the tape.
A much more serious and significant fact than in moments anger some Dad calling his daughter a little pig.
W
In this case,
the kid didn’t kill anyone that I know of....
She didn’t deserve what happened to her...
Personally,
I hope AB is never allowed near her again.
He’s scum, and she’s pretty much as I can tell, just a kid.
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