XDA

103 year old Morley Safer kissing the very substantial butt of never was that great actor Alec Baldwin tonight. Morley called him one of the more interesting actors of his generation. Yeah, if by interesting you mean his acting range is basically limited to narcissistic louts. He was good in Beetle Juice, Heaven's Prisoners and Malice, OK to passable in Hunt for Red October and State and Main and probably Glengary Glen Ross (never saw it, probably never will). But consider the stinkers: The Shadow, Mercury Rising, Adventures of Pluto Nash, Pearl Harbor, and Cat in the Hat. Then there are the cartoon and TV triumphs--Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, Clerks (cartoon version), SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and the last of a dying breed, a TV sitcom, 30 Rock. Yeah, a great actor. Hasn't anyone at 60 Minutes seen Team America?

It didn't end there, more's the pity.

And yet it's his off-screen performances that can get in the way of a truly gifted man, and often it's his liberal politics that make him red meat for his critics.
"They hate liberals who can throw a punch," Baldwin tells Safer.
Asked who "they" are, Baldwin says, "They, yeah, this…they. The vast right wing conspiracy that's after me."
Liberal politics has always been his passion. He grew up in a working class family on Long Island, N.Y. He has an impressive grasp of the issues, and spends a huge amount of his time and money supporting causes he believes in, like animal rights, the environment, and the arts.

Gross me out. Mr. Eloquence had a little trouble there identifying his 'oppressors.' Part of the true gift, no doubt.

The guy is a poli sci drop-out from safety school George Washington U in DC, for Pete's sake, who finished with a BA from dumb ass NYU, in drama, wow! quite a stretch for a Hollywood actor, at age 35. Impressive grasp of the issues like animal 'rights' and the 'arts'. Yeah, and he translates the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus into Middle Sanskrit for fun on weekends. 60 Minutes producers must think we'll believe anything they say. At best he's a self absorbed lefty 'thinker' with 950 SATs and a 2.5 gradepoint average, who looked pretty good in his youth and was good at the pretending.

Not through yet, over at the creaking with age CBS flagship show.

But his bare-knuckled approach to political discourse has made him an easy target for conservative junkyard dogs like Sean Hannity. (That's Morely doing the name calling).

Your eloquence, if that’s the word, can get you into deep trouble," Safer remarks.
"So I don't make the eloquent point so eloquently, is that what you're saying?" Baldwin asks.
"Or you make them perhaps excessively eloquent, as in your description of Dick Cheney, who you said was a sociopath and a terrorist. And you later apologized by just calling him a lying, thieving oil whore and a murderer of the U.S. Constitution," Safer replies.

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. I'm OK, now. (Although Morley said it, that was Baldwin doing the neither clever or accurate name calling this time).

The real irony here is that they are taking this never was actor seriously. People in the real world think he is a joke, and a pretty sad one at that. We watch him now with the same fascination rubes watch the Geek act in sideshows--we can't believe he really bites the head off the remnants of his once promising career.

I personally can't get past that he criticizes the President and Vice President in the same way he speaks to his 12 year old daughter (or 11 years old, he seemed unsure on the phone message), whom he called a "thoughtless little pig" (et al.) What a great guy! Well worth praising far beyond his deserving on neither relevant nor cutting edge 60 Minutes. If I were an actor still trying to get work, I would move Heaven and Hell not to be so showcased there. It is the death of any vestige of cool.

Labels: Alec Baldwin; 60 Minutes