When Universes Collide

Liberal and conservative universes collided on Sunday night on WABC radio.

The scene of the clash was Brian Whitman's show. Alec Baldwin was scheduled to spend the better part of the two and a half hour show with Whitman -- a sort of on air audition for Baldwin, an "I'm not a talk show host, but I'll play one on the radio" thing.

It didn't go well. He got huffy and walked out of the studio after a dustup with Sean Hannity and Mark Levin.

Rule #1 for success on radio: STAY IN THE STUDIO!

According to Sean Hannity, Baldwin's appearance with Whitman was to be preceded by an appearance on his radio show, but Baldwin backed out of the Hannity appearance.

That's the background. Here's part of what happened when Hannity and Mark Levin called in during Baldwin's guest-host stint with Whitman. This is not the entire exchange. Missing is the part where Baldwin called Hannity a "no talent whore."

Transcript, from NewsMax

HANNITY: Alec, I wanted to give you an official WABC welcome considering you were supposed to come on my program last week and you didn't show up. What happened?


BALDWIN: No, I wasn't supposed to come on your program, Sean Hannity.

HANNITY: No, actually you were supposed to come on the program because a deal was made with your agent that if you were going to come on with Brian, first you'd come on with me.

BALDWIN: I wouldn't dream of coming on your program, Sean Hannity. I'm here with Brian. I'm here with a really talented broadcaster.

HANNITY: [Crosstalk] that you are, you don't tell the truth.

BALDWIN: Why would I want to come on the show with a no-talent, former construction worker hack like you?


HANNITY: Are you the guy that said of our vice president, while we're at war, while we're leading troops in harm's way - are you the reckless, third-rate Hollywood actor who said that Dick Cheney is a terrorist? Are you the guy . . .

BALDWIN: Yes I am.

HANNITY: ... who said to stone Henry Hyde to death? Are you the guy who said our president is a CIA mass murderer? I wanted you to come on the program and defend that, you gutless coward.

BALDWIN: At first I thought this was a joke. But you can hear all the acid venom spewing hatred. It is Sean Hannity. [END EXCERPT]

The exchange got even hotter when Mark Levin joined in.

LEVIN: We've only just begun - are you 40 or 50 pounds overweight now?

WHITMAN: Oh, C'mon now . . . .

HANNITY: Once and for all you need to be challenged. You want to call our vice president a terrorist - fine. You want to talk about stoning people to death, say it on my program. If you want to be irresponsible and call our president a mass murderer while he's at war leading troops in harm's way ...

BALDWIN: And what are you gonna do about it, Sean Hannity?

HANNITY: You don't have the courage to answer questions.

BALDWIN: And what are you gonna do? And what are you going to do about it, Sean Hannity. If I come on your program, what are you going to do?

LEVIN: He's going to show that you have a two digit IQ - that's what he's gonna do.

BALWIN: What are you going to do?

LEVIN: I just told you - you've got a two digit IQ.

BALDWIN: And who's that - who's your little cabin boy there with you.

LEVIN: I'm not a cabin boy, butt-boy.

BALDWIN: What are you doing there, cabin boy? ... I now dub you Sean Hannity's cabin boy.

LEVIN: And you know what you are? You're "Brokeback" Alec. [END EXCERPT]

The confrontation continued to spiral out of control, with Whitman intermittently trying to make peace and Baldwin repeatedly urging him to move on to other callers.

BALDWIN: Listen, Sean - you incredibly ignorant boob from Long Island ...

HANNITY: Oh, ouch, Alec.

BALDWIN: No, no, no, you've spoken, let me talk, Sean. Cause you've been spewing your ...

HANNITY: You're a third-rate Hollywood egomaniac.

BALDWIN: You're a no-talent, ignorant fool from Long Island. You should go back to building houses in Hempstead.

LEVIN: Why was your [former] wife [Kim Basinger] so pissed off at you, anyway?

WHITMAN: Now, c'mon guys.

BALDWIN: OK. We're done. [Gets up and leaves the studio]

WHITMAN: Come back. Come back. Alec? They're gone. Alec? Alec has walked out of the studio. Alec, please come back.

Clearly, punches were thrown by all parties involved. I think if Baldwin had been willing to rationally engage Hannity, things would never have become so heated, at least in terms of the name-calling.

But this was just the beginning. The feud is still raging.

Both Hannity and Levin have devoted a good deal of air time to discussing the Baldwin incident.

Baldwin is keeping the battle alive as well, and also doing some big time CYA. I suppose his publicist insisted that he do some damage control due to his seemingly derogatory statements about construction workers.

It's the blue collar Americans that go to movies or at least rent movies. For a prominent Hollywood lib to come off as even more out of touch with working men and women -- the backbone of America -- is bad for Hollywood. It's bad for Baldwin's image; and it's bad for the Dems who align themselves with the Hollywood crowd.

Today on his blog at Huffington Post, Baldwin addresses the incident.

In an attempt to present himself as fair and balanced, he heaps praise on Bill O'Reilly, calling him a "talented broadcaster."

Baldwin says, "He is telegenic in ways that most network anchors and cable hosts can only dream of. He is commanding and quick on his feet. He is inexhaustible and has an abundance of those simple skills that make for what used to be called 'Great Television.'"

When was the last time you heard a Hollywood lib compliment O'Reilly? When was the first time? I think this would be it.

On Sunday evening, at the suggestion of a friend of mine who works inside the NY radio broadcast community, I guest-hosted Brian Whitman's talk show on WABC radio, which was, ultimately, hijacked by talk-show host Sean Hannity, who called in and demanded to be heard. He was accompanied by another ABC Talk Radio host, Mark Levin, someone I had never heard of before that evening.

How could Baldwin be unfamiliar with Levin?

I would have thought that knowledge of popular syndicated radio host and best-selling author Mark Levin would have penetrated the Hollywood lib bubble by now.

After some back and forth between myself and Hannity, most of it predictable, Levin made a comment connected to my divorce proceedings. I turned to Whitman, who knew that I was due to depart the show no later than 8:30 PM New York time anyway, and told him I had to go. I thought that Levin, whoever he may be and whatever code he does or does not operate by, had crossed a line and I was under no obligation to continue in that vein.

Whitman was on Hannity's show today. He took issue with Baldwin saying that it was time for him to leave anyway. Whitman said that Baldwin's departure was in direct response to his exchange with Hannity and Levin.

Levin defended his comment, "Why was your wife so pissed off at you, anyway?" He noted that Baldwin has often publicly discussed his divorce. He didn't consider his rather innocuous question to have crossed a line.

Baldwin's suggestion that he felt it was inappropriate to bring family into the "debate" is somewhat disingenuous.

Is he forgetting his 1998 appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, when he said that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde should be stoned to death and his family killed?

Baldwin ranted:

"If we were living in another country, what we, all of us together, would go down to Washington and stone Henry Hyde to death, stone him to death, stone him to death! Then we would go to their house and we'd kill the family, kill the children."

Oh, I don't know. Do you think that Baldwin's suggestion that Henry Hyde's family and children be stoned to death was a tad over the line? Just a little?

I have no problem with anything Hannity might say. Hannity, who lacks practically every skill that O'Reilly conveys so effortlessly, will always be doomed to do what he can with what little he has. But to suggest that I have any disrespect for any laborers of any kind in this country is plain wrong.

In terms of making the most of his skills, Hannity is second only to Rush Limbaugh in talk radio. Being completely objective, Hannity has achieved tremendous success. That's undeniable. It is very small of Baldwin to pretend that is not the case. He's being unrealistic, which discredits his commentary.

Moreover, if Baldwin has so much respect for construction workers, then why did he repeatedly belittle Hannity for having once worked in construction?

Hannity did what he does best: to artificially cast himself as the friend of the working man, and to attempt to frame me as the snobbish, distant limousine liberal who emanates all of his public-mindedness from his checkbook, while never knowing the business end of level, a hammer or a drill. Shame on you, Sean Hannity, you poor, ignorant fool. Everyone who knows me, and a wealth of people who actually don't, would never believe that characterization.

Let's be fair.

Hannity does not "artificially cast himself as the friend of the working man." That's patently false. For example, he has spent hours on the issue of eminent domain. He has personally assisted "working men" about to be forced off of their property.

Through hard work, Hannity is realizing his dreams. Anyone who knows his story, knows that he struggled economically and didn't have anything handed to him on a silver platter.

As far as Baldwin goes, I've heard him talk about his childhood. He wasn't born into privilege either.

That said, Baldwin did frame his comment about Hannity's past construction work as an insult. That's why people who heard it, especially construction workers, are so offended.

It would have been much wiser for Baldwin to acknowledge that his words could have been interpreted to mean that he looked down on the working man. He should have simply apologized for the misunderstanding and expressed that he did not consider blue collar workers to be inferior to high and mighty Hollywood celebrities.

Pornography is the lurid and detached exploitation of something that is essentially good, even necessary, in order to make money, while simultaneously shaming and disgracing all of those who are involved. Instead of the basic force of sex, "political pornographers" exploit the good and necessary love of country that men and women seek to express and exercise on both sides of the aisle. Hannity is such a pornographer. He taunts and goads his listenership to express their political views in lurid, yet detached, ways. They do it in anonymity. They stress themselves to reach out and touch people in their lurid and detached way who they do not even know. Like pornography, they exert themselves to reach a state that gives them the release that they consciously avoid through a healthier, more personal involvement. Like pornography.

Hannity is the Larry Flynt of talk-radio. And he has about as much influence in the world of American public affairs as Flynt. It must be hard for these rabid right-wing types to watch their heroes fall. Almost as hard for them as it is for those of us who saw through these people from the beginning.

In effect, Baldwin is stealing Bill Moyers' line about talk radio being "a freak show of political pornography: lies, distortions, and half-truths — half-truths being perhaps the blackest of all lies."

He, however, takes the pornography analogy to a new height, and slams the twelve million plus daily listeners of Hannity's radio show.

Actually, I think Baldwin's latest remarks are just as offensive as his berating of construction workers.

It's rather snobbish to cast Hannity's listeners as akin to consumers of pornography.

He can fight with Hannity. He can fight with Levin. But why would he want to fight with millions of hard-working, conservative Americans?

What could be more divisive than that?

In spite of Baldwin's politics and his dips into complete lunacy, I think he can be very funny.

I'm normally quite successful at compartmentalizing the political rants of lib celebrities. I can manage to put the partisan stuff aside and be entertained by them.

Even the Sunday feud on Whitman's show I think I could fence off and ignore. But Baldwin's blanket statements today attack so many good people in such an ugly way. That will be very hard to contain.

Baldwin says that he "knows what it's like to work hard, and to love your country, every day."

I'm sure Baldwin has worked hard. I'm sure he loves his country. The problem is there are millions and millions of his countrymen that he disdains.