Roger L. Simon: Absentee father

Wasn't this guy going to leave the country after the last election ? (I actually played the audio file and all I can say is... wow.)

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Gee, Roger. If she gets her act together, maybe she'll get a set of steak knives for Christmas.

Seems like Basinger is driving a wedge between father and daughter. Unfortunately the leftist court system is very biased against fathers in such cases. That said, Baldwin is an obnoxious lefty himself so it is hard to sympathise much with him.

Note the "excuse" for Mr. Baldwin's behavior cited by his "spokesperson" [(s)he of indeterminate gender]:

UPDATE: Alec Baldwin's spokesperson released the following statement to the TV show "EXTRA": "In the best interest of the child, Alec will do what the mother is pathologically incapable of doing ... keeping his mouth shut and obeying the court order. The mother and her lawyer leaked this sealed material in violation of a court order. Although Alec acknowledges that he should have used different language in parenting his child, everyone who knows him privately knows what he has been put through for the past six years."

You see, Mr. Baldwin is a victim. It's not his fault. Just look at what the poor dear "has been put through for the past six years."

IF Basinger is trying to drive a wedge between father and daughter, and the court system is screwing him over, on what planet would it be appropriate for a father to take it out on his minor daughter, who by virtue of her legal status, has zero control in this situation?

None of us knows what the real situation is here, but IF Basinger and the judge are to blame, why does Baldwin abuse the helpless pawn in this situation? What a bully. Seems like a narccissistic personality disorder. Could be a ticking time bomb.

Sean Penn knocked his wives around. Why are the compassionate lefties so into bullying women and chidren?

I noticed that Baldwin doesn't know if his daughter is 11 or 12 years old. Did Basinger keep this from him?

Ever experience the manipulative and/or hostile behavior that an eleven or twelve year old girl is capable of? You don't have to like the guy to sympathize, given what he's probably been put through by the Basinger mother daughter tag team.

Coisty (above), to me this has nothing to do with Baldwin's politics and everything to do with being a wretched father. Did you listen to his tape?

If we're to 'understand' Baldwin on the basis of what mom & daughter have done to him, how about we also 'understand' what they have done to him, on the basis of what he is.

IOW, if your family is treating you like sh*t, you can get furious, or you can quit being sh*t.

I actually feel sorry for the guy. He doesn't realize that his own bullying is causing his pain. He obviously felt humiliated before, I sure hope it's worse now. But I, at age 70, know that preteens CAN be as bad as teens and when it comes to acting out to Dad, even on the premises, they can be masterful in the way they do it. This doesn't mean I think he is right in yelling or screaming, but you can hear pain in his voice.

The man is a bully, that is one of the reasons his wife left him. To just assume that this is all her fault when she is not the one screaming at the kid makes me wonder what tone you use with your own kids, if you have any. The last I heard Alec Baldwin was trying to get "help" for his brother Stephen because the man became a Christian. Horror!

You can not be serious. Really. Tag team my behind. No one made this man act like he does.

True, Ruth, but a child only has that sort of leverage if the adult is already using her as a lever.

IOW, she couldn't "embarrass and insult" a full adult into such a state. He's worried about how he looks; protecting his image.

She won't cooperate his way, so she is worthless to him. So worthless, she's not even a person, but a "little pig".

So is woman hating something that men of both the left and right can agree on? Sympathize with one another?

My niece has very nearly reduced my brother to tears on more than one occasion. Kids can be manipulative, especially in situations like this where the parents are going at each other. No doubt about it. But that does not excuse this kind of behavior on the part of an adult. Besides, Alec Baldwin is obnoxious. This is his nature.

The left hates children. Look at anything they do and you'll see its manifestation.

Baldwin sounds like your typical self-absorbed jerk. How exactly does leaving someone a phone message constitute humiliation?

This is in the same vein as John Kerry falling down in the snow and cursing out a Secret Service agent for it.

Wow, what a man. Verbally abusing a kid. Takes real courage to do that, doesn't it?

I guess Baldwin didn't leave the country after the 2004 election was because no other country would take him.

First of all, why has no one asked how this tape got to the Internet? Who would have had access? Kim may be a vicious as she is pretty.

Maybe Alec and Kim deserve each other? It's too bad the daughter gets stuck in the middle.

However, I am sure some knucklehead somewhere will try to turn this into some sort of PC parenthood exercise.

Baldwin is gifted and frightening (to me it's his most memorable moment on film), but it seems the gift to charm as well as threaten in a larger than life way highlights something that is missing in men like Baldwin and Penn. I can't put my finger on it - I'm no professional. But it is profoundly unsettling. Those who would follow these men and see the world through the prism of their eyes are simply not wise individuals. I note how they exercise their judgment and follow the opposite course. I see how little their lives resemble mine.

good catch--i'll watch it. the whole movie is hypnotic. All about those "leads" --they all knew the good leads from the not-good leads, and as survival-of-the-fittest asserts itself, somehow the good leads flow to the young bulls. Lemmon has all those bills--he's living beyond his means and his family must NOT ever know it--gad, the horror, the horror.

Obviously, Baldwin didn't get this way overnight. This is not the first time he expressed his helpless rage on his family and others nor will it be the last. He can't stop himself at this age as he is a member of the "special elite" class who refuse normal limitations on their behavior. Once his anger is triggered, he is outta control. A normal parent of a pre-teen child would express anger in a much more healthy manner and would not be motivated to terrorize and humiliate the kid. What an appalling narcissistic display.

Roger knows more about the environment that Alec Baldwin lives in than I do, but it seems to me that an actor's life must be one of continual self-doubt ("What if they don't call me any more?") mixed with flattery - adoring fans, sycophatic studio types, etc. That combination must be enough to turn the heads of all but the strongest, most solidly rooted people.

I'm not making excuses for the guy - a jerk is a jerk, regardless of the cause - but if I were in that world, I could see myself going down that path quite easily.

April 19, 2007: Absentee father

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