Does fornicating with beautiful women and remembering acting lines provide him with some sort of unique insight into the democratic process which is denied to mere mortals?
No. But he's a lie-beral big mouth with money, face-recognition, access to the media, and a message that is simpatico with those who provide him the air-time.
And that's what our free press has become.
He is all that, and he also had the (good for him, bad for us) fortune to speak at the A&M breakfast supposedly commemorating a successful march on Tallahassee two years ago. That's the only reason he got column inches.
I know Bill Cotterell, the reporter on this particular piece. While I don't agree with everything he writes, he's usually pretty fair. He covers the capitol, and was probably tossed this assignment because it's a "hollywood star" -- something we don't see a lot of here in our little armpit of the state -- and wrote the only news he saw in that room.
Alec Baldwin is news only because Alec Baldwin *was* news -- in a car-wreck, turn-your-head-to-stare kind of way -- when he said he'd leave the country if Bush were elected. Note they don't ask him to comment on Middle Eastern policy, or the economy, or anything that really matters. Nor would they...he's only an "expert" on hating Bush and making a spectacle of himself about the subject.
And that's the only reason they invited him to speak, too.