Alec Baldwin, Still Angry at the Wrong Person

It goes without saying that in this dustup, Baldwin is a victim of the tabloids.

"Everybody who works in the tabloid media are people filled with self-hatred and shame, and the way they manage those feelings is that they destroy the lives of other people and reveal your secrets," he told Rosie, whose knee he petted several times during the interview.

Then, of course, he's also a victim of Basinger, who he says is responsible for the leak.

"My friends, my close friends, and my family and my colleagues -- they all know what's been done to me," he confided.

At one point, Rosie sympathetically noted that the message "was really never supposed to be leaked; it was a private conversation between you, the message machine, and your daughter."

Which is why it seemed so odd that Rosie forgot to stop Baldwin when he proceeded to relate to her national audience a private conversation he says he had with his daughter about Basinger. It went like this:

"I was rubbing her hair, waking her up, and she laughed at me and I go, 'What's so funny?' She said, 'The way you wake me up in the morning where you rub my hair and [ask] what do I want for breakfast?' She goes, 'It's so funny to me.' I go, 'Why?' She says, 'Because my mom opens the door and says, "Get the hell out of bed right now -- we're late!" ' When women do a certain thing, it's perceived one way. When men do it, it's perceived another way."

Which brings us to Reason No. Whateverwe'reupto why Alec Baldwin is a Victim: He was born about 50 years too late.

"Things have changed so much since I was a child, and things like this would happen, and a woman might go and have lunch with her friends or go see her family, or she might go to the country club or to a group she was involved with and tell people what she was feeling about what was going on, and share with them," the 49-year-old actor said sadly.

"Now, in the world we live in, as you know, a person presses one button and the whole world knows that's happened to you."

I'll give you a minute to read that over again, paying particular attention to the women-used-to-go-to-the-country-club bit. Good stuff.

You've made me feel like a fool over and over and over again. And this [expletive] you pull on me with this [expletive] phone situation that you would never dream of doing to your mother and you do it to me constantly. . . . I am going to get on a plane and I am going to come out there for the day and I am going to straighten your [expletive] out when I see you.