Alec Baldwin continues to be not nice

I haven't had a whole lot to say about the Alec Baldwin daughter-trashing incident because I've been trying to give Alec the benefit of the doubt. Reason being he's developed into a such a top-notch scene-stealing actor and, quite frankly, I live in fear of the collective powers of the Baldwin brood. Anyway, if you only listen to the first 30 seconds of Alec's two-and-a-half minute ass-straightening, swine-equating tirade it's not that bad.

But Alec lost me with today's (taped) apology. So he goes to Dr. Phil to work out his rage and daughter-hatred issues? I don't even think this Phil is a real doctor. In fact, if memory serves, he was some sort of cow wrangler until Oprah found him and unleashed him upon the world.

Sometimes, during a basketball game, a streaking jump shooter will pull up for a ridiculously long shot. They call that a heat check. Well Dr. Phil was Oprah's heat check. And after he found the target, the daytime talk queen strutted around the court safe in her knowledge the housewives of America have an insatiable appetite for any trash she decides to throw up.

But enough about Phil, the real problem here is Alec. By eschewing proper rehab he is clearly trying to conduct his public rehabilitation on the cheap. What's that about? It's almost like he is saying he doesn't love his daughter as much as Mel Gibson loves not hating Jews, or Mark Foley loves not buggering pages, or Lindsay and Britney love being quasi-respectable celebrities with all their naughty parts covered.

Actually, that is exactly what he is saying. Jerk.

Note: The picture above is not from a cinematic release. It's the inevitable result of an officer of the law's misguided attempt to tell a Baldwin what's what.

That's not supposed to go there

During the Mark Foley scandal I recommended the only way out for Dennis Hastert was to claim that, because he was a high school wrestling coach, he was uniquely unqualified to gauge Mark Foley's threat to male, underage pages. Reason being, after years of directing teenage boys into what the non-wrestling world would refer to as "sexual positions," Hastert had developed the appropriate level of homo-obliviousness.

Sometimes, during conversations with my friends and acquaints who wrestled in high school, I mention how gay their childhood sport comes off as. Wrestlers seem to be sensitive to this charge and will usually threaten to beat me up if I keep badgering them about it.

Since ex-wrestlers are skilled in at least one type of physical combat, and I am skilled in none, I believe they probably could beat me up -- or worse. So I shut up.

Speaking of the "or worse," this spectacular lede from an article about a South Dakota high school state champion wrestler facing 400 years in prison neatly sums up wrestling's dangerously thin line between sport and public fornication:

Some are calling it rape; others are calling it a legal wrestling move.

The wrestler in question apparently used this move, which prosecutors say "accomplished an act of sexual penetration," in matches, practice and, oddly, during team bus rides.

It's up to a jury to decide this young innovator's fate but, as far I am concerned, the verdict on wrestling is in.

Albeit too late to do Hastert any good.

Bonus video: Bruno, Sacha Cohen's gay Austrian journalist alter-ego, fools spring breaking high school wrestlers.

Saudi Arabia struggels to keep up

Things are getting crazy in Saudi Arabia. "Western culture" has infected the kingdom and its subjects now engage in "orgies" and participate in "wife swapping."

Wife swapping? Orgies? That's so cute!

Although, I'm not sure they should be attributed to the influence of "Western culture." Unless by "wife" the Saudis mean "gay prostitute." And by "swapping" they mean a "big pile of crystal meth."

I've read things about this "orgy" before, and I can say with full confidence it does not involve having a sexually explicit written conversation via a hand-held electronic device.

Our fair weathered Saudi friends still have long way to go before they can claim "infection" from the Western culture that confronts us Westerners everyday. I wish them well on their journey. It should be fun.

What Hastert should tell the ethics committee

Ever since the Foley scandal broke I've seen variations of the homo-oblivious defense offered on behalf of the GOP house leadership.

I am partially sympathetic to the notion that in absence of explicitly sexual emails or instant messages a bunch of middle-aged man from conservative Midwestern backgrounds aren't going to immediately conclude the friendly, personal communications between a 53 year-old man and a sixteen year-old boy are sexual in nature. Whereas if the same 53 year-old had asked a sixteen year-old girl to send him a photo of herself the alarm bells would go right off.

Unfortunately for the theory, it seems everyone in congress knew Foley was gay. So it wouldn't be too difficult to step into his perspective for a moment -- as alien as it might be.

But I learned something today about embattled House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert that brings the homo-oblivious defense right back into play.

Before entering Congress Hastert was a high school wrestling coach.

I don't need to list the reasons -- the mounting, the scissoring, the unitards -- why wrestling is really, really gay.

Obviously those who chose to wrestle for the competition and challenge develop a pretty keen sense of homo-obliviousness as they thrust their pelvis into another man.

That goes double for the coach who is ordering these strapping teenage boys into positions that mimic the act of physical love.

I'd like to think your typical high school wrestling coach would be the most homo-oblivious man in town -- it should be demanded, really.

From what I've heard from Hastert over the past couple weeks he lacks the verbal capacity to mount an almost-complicated defense like this.

But if he's selling I'm buying.

Foley may have been punked

Two people close to Jordan Edmund, the then 18 year-old on the other end of the lurid instant messages that have fueled the Mark Foley scandal, claim Edmund "goaded the unwitting Foley to type the embarrassing comments."

Then Edmund, who they say is not gay, showed the IM messages to other young politicos and they all had a good laugh at sad old Foley's expense.

The prank went awry when the recorded messages got into hands of a "democratic operative."

This via Matt Drudge, who is having the best week ever.

Even if this is true it doesn't mean Foley is innocent of all ethical charges -- or fit to be around pages. But it does mean he was entrapped, so to speak, and Foley looks more and more like a pathetic awkward guy than a dangerous sexual predator. He obviously wasn't intimidating any of the pages with his power, as has been suggested.

Drudge admits he is only right 80 percent of the time. So far he has been spot on with his Foley affair reporting. Including breaking the news last night that the page was 18 -- not 16 as ABC News had reported. ABC confirmed they got the age wrong today.

Part of me thinks this could all be an attempt by Edmund -- who just hired a criminal defense attorney -- to cover up his homosexuality. But, if not, the egg on ABC's face could feed a small nation. Because it doesn't seem like they talked to Edmund before running the story. Something they absolutely needed to do.

The GOP's congressional leadership is facing a conservative revolt over Foley's behavior and they need a bogeyman to take some of the pressure off. If this report is true they have found it in ABC News. The organized backlash could exceed what took place during Rathergate.

As for Drudge, the week began with the release of the first chapter from ABC News' political head Mark Halperin's new book which says this about the Internet pioneer:

If you are reading this book, you probably know who Matt Drudge is. It is a guarantee that most of the reporters, editors, producers, and talk show bookers who serve up the daily national buffet of news recently have checked out his eponymous website, and that www.drudgereport.com is bookmarked on their computers. That is one reason Drudge is the single most influential purveyor of information about American politics.

Halperin goes on to say that Drudge was more responsible than President Bush or Karl Rove for the defeat of John Kerry in 2004.

Drudge proudly displayed this excerpt on his eponymous website. And may have just rewarded Halperin by setting in motion a devastating blow to his news organization's reputation.

It's been almost three hours since Drudge broke this potentially shocking twist. The rest of the news world has yet to comment. They are all sitting at their computers waiting to see what Matt Drudge -- a solitary man with a modem and a hat -- posts next.

Or if he whisks the story away like he never put it up in the first place.

This wit of Louisiana politics

Edwin Edwards resides in a Texas federal prison. Back when he was a free man and the long-time governor of Louisiana he claimed the only way he could lose an election was if he "was caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy."

Not only did this quip display the type of wit that propelled a known criminal to state-wide office*, it seemed to have a logic that could be applied beyond the cesspool that is Louisiana politics -- and is oft-quoted because of that.

Yet it doesn't hold up to scrutiny when applied broadly. The Foley scandal reminds us that in 1983 Congressmen Gary Studds of Massachusetts admitted to having a sexual relationship with a male page ten years earlier. He even took the then 17-year old with him on a taxpayer financed congressional trip to Morocco for some underage fun in the African sun.

Studds was censored by congress but refused to apologize and turned his back when the censure was read. His home district rewarded his defiance by re-electing him six times.

So why in 2006, when homosexuality is far more accepted than it was 1983, has Mark Foley's live 16 year old boy -- one he likely never physically touched -- sent him fleeing the House of Representives for "alcohol" rehab and left his party's leadership in disarray?

While it is true an event unfolding in real-time is starker than something being revisited ten years later-- as was the case with the outing of the Studds affair, the far bigger difference between the two indiscretions is the recorded electronic communication between Foley and the teenager.

These creepy, overtly sexual IM's are boldfaced all over the internet for anyone with a mouse and modem to read and cringe at.

I'm sure if the public of 1983 had caught a whiff of the spoken dialogue between Stubbs and his young male page, Stubbs wouldn't have been engaging in congressional grandstanding in the aftermath.

I think we have seen the future of all political sex scandals. If not all political scandals.

When the next corrupt, clever populist sweeps his way into the Louisiana statehouse he'll come ready with a quip about how the key to winning elections is having never heard of the Internet.

*When Edwards left office in 1987, disgraced, a local political writer commented, "The only way Edwards could ever be elected again is if he runs against Adolph Hitler." Lo and behold Edwards plotted his political comeback in 1991 against Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. He narrowly defeated Duke to retake the governorship. His unofficial campaign slogan was "vote for the crook."

Leave the drunks alone

Ex-congressmen Mark Foley is the latest public figure to give alcoholics a bad and undeserved name. While he didn't explicitly blame his dirty IM-ing on his "disease," he did check himself into alcohol rehab right after resigning his position.

He is following the lead of fellow disgraced representative Bob Ney who brazenly linked alcoholism to Indian swindling.

Of course Mel Gibson started it all -- although I have to admit Gibson's paranoid expression of ethnic resentment was at least in-line with the behavior of some of the alcoholics I've known.

Still, I can't help thinking these headline-grabbers are just using "rehab" as a way to avoid the accountability spotlight without being accused of going into hiding.

Fair enough. I'd want to run and hide too. But what effect is this going to have on real alcoholics? A couple months ago I'd be reluctant to lend an alcoholic my car, but I would have been fine with letting a 16 year old relative intern at their place of business, and wouldn't have thought twice before introducing an alcoholic to my good friend Chief Spinning Wheel.

Now? Not so much.

Alcoholics already have enough problems with the falling down and the pissing themselves. Do they also need to be associated with all of society's ills?

I say no. But it's really up to the alcoholics to govern their own ranks. I do fear the inclusiveness that is preached to the twelve-steppers in recovery leaves them ill-equipped to do so, and this alcoholism thing is going to become the go-to out for all public misbehavior.