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.
There is no evidence that the mother is the person who put it out there.
And no adult has the right to say what he did to his child. He’s scum and if she never wants him in her life again, all the better for her.
I don’t blame the child for not answering the phone. The creep made fun of her on national television (Letterman) the night before.
What a horrible “father”.
I happened to pick up the Enquirer yesterday and there was an article that last year Baldwin went off on his daughter in the airport because she didn’t pack her bags properly, he threated her, screamed at her, she was in tears and shaking when people around them and airport personnel stepped in to try and defuse the situation... they named names of witnesses. Will be interesting, if this is true, if kim calls some of these people to the custody trial.
Oh, my friend, that wasn't exploding. That was merely stating my unequivocal belief. Sorry you thought I was mad, but if you knew me you'd know I was nowhere near angry.
I have to agree with you here. I'm just guessing, but my guess is that it is mostly women who are worked up about this.
If I were to have "self-image" problems based on the names my dad called me when he was yelling at me - I would probably be catatonic in a permanent fetal position as an adult.
Somehow I survived.
Alec’s prollems are none of my business. Kim’s prollems are none of my business. The daughter’s prollems are none of my business.
Shucks, I have enough on my plate steering my own posterity.
Not everyone does.... some folks never do.
If your father hates you, it’ll destroy your sanity.
While AB ‘says’ he loves Ireland, I’m willing to bet the farm that she doesn’t think it, or believe it, and will have problems because of it.
Dear lord in heaven,
get that child away from that jerk.
He just played the blame game anyway so it wasn’t an apology anyway. If he wanted to apologize, he shoudl have gone to his daughter in private and apologized and let it go at that. I don’t need to hear his lame excuse for an apology. He was told to do it publicly probably to garner sympathy fromt he public. Can’t get over how people air their personal laundry out there in front of everyone. Guess there is no limit to the lengths people like ballwinn will go to get the attentiion they so badly crave.
Yes, if he said all this to his daughter you can imagine what he has said to his wife. Im no Bassinger fan but...I’ve heard and read too many reports about this man and his vile temper. I’m on Kim’s side on this one.
I feel so bad for their daughter. She has two idiot parents. I just hope there is someone in her life that she can look to to for some sanity.
If that's too upsetting, let me know.
I live in Cleveland and endure daily the wreckage Schulz & co. have generated. So If this is too much criticism, I'll happily park my comments and attention elsewhere.
If he's embarrassed because he had to rush to get to a phone -- GET A CELL PHONE IDIOT!
I think of all the battered women stories, and how the women went back to the batterer, saying 'it was my fault'.
Here Alec is mad and abusive, and is laying the groundwork for the girl to think it's her fault.
Alec should not be allowed anywhere near that kid.
That is my thinking. If you are in the market this week pick up the Enquirer and read the article, it’s really something....
That's a very important, profound lesson which most of us would do well to remember.
It’s not upsetting at all. But even liberals get something right once in a while. She called out this weasely creep of a “father,” who’s really nothing more than a self-obsessed, self-important sire.
Yours mzybe.
I also actually feel sorry for him.
PS love your Calvin tag. (we actually have his clone as a son)
HA HA HA HA
Identified!!!
Now we get to brass tacks...
“no adult has the right to say what he did to his child.”
In the Fascist World you wish to create one should be imprisoned for calling their daughter a little pig.
Because, that is what you really said...
If it is not a not a Right then it is a wrong and a properly a crime..
Further extrapolating on your peculiar form of madness your position is the child has a right to not be offended.. or insulted.
So now properly the Department Of Social Services in California should step in at the point of a gun and seize custody of the little waif because the Mother was also unable or unwilling to protect and prevent her ward from being publicly discomforted by the release of the tape...
Oh she did not release the tape right? OK then, a crime has been committed when someone without permission released the contents of a private phone conversation. Further the privacy of a minor which is “Sacrosanct” is involved.
Show me the criminal case number under which that was filed.
lol
You say the Guy is Scum...I think all but a minority of Media types are scum for their overall immoral conduct and mindless political associations so to that extent we agree.
Not because he became angry at his kid. Or her “feelings” may or may not have been hurt by his words.
That rotten fishy smell?
Thats the Mom’s Machinations (scheming actions intended to accomplish an usually evil end”)
Caught Caught Caught... lol
W
I don’t even know you, but I can tell you right now that if you ever screamed at your daughter like Baldwin did, and I happened to be present at the time, the reaction of a hostile press would be the least of your worries.
And that goes for anybody. Anyone abusing their kid in my presence had better be prepared to have a very unpleasant day. Child abuse — verbal or otherwise — is an “offensive impertinence, up with which I will not put”.
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