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Baldwin is terrific in 30 Rock. Deadpan and just plain outstanding in the sitcom.

I was dead set against the man, based on the personal/political baggage, but he really carries the show.

That said, still a world class jerk - but at least he’s true to form and not trying to hide it.

Baldwin was also pretty decent in The Cooler, where he played a violent, bullying, and really unpleasant Las Vegas casino owner.

He does OK in roles where he doesn’t have to stretch too far from his natural character (Red October was done in a happier period of his life).

Alec Baldwin is a talented entertainer. In Medieval days, entertainers were more appropriately called jesters or fools. This web page describes how one became a fool and entertained back in the day. Below is an excerpt:

The recruiting of jesters was tremendously informal and meritocratic, perhaps indicating greater mobility and fluidity in past society than is often supposed. A man with the right qualifications might be found anywhere: in Russia "they were generally selected from among the older and uglier of the serf-servants, and the older the fool or she-fool was, the droller they were supposed and expected to be. The fool had the right to sit at table with his master, and say whatever came into his head." Noblemen might keep an eye out for potential jesters, and a letter dated 26 January 1535/36 from Thomas Bedyll to Thomas Cromwell (ca. 1485-1540) recommends a possible replacement for the king's old jester:

Ye know the Kinges grace hath one old fole: Sexten as good as myght be whiche because of aige is not like to cotinew.
I haue spied one yong fole at Croland whiche in myne opinion shalbe muche mor pleasaunt than euer
Sexten was . . . and he is not past xv yere old.

So here is to the fools we have today. It seems they believe they still have the right to sit at the table with the master and say whatever comes into his or her head.