Alec Baldwin Should Be Fired

Alec Baldwin is a cocksucking fag hater.

For anyone who thinks I just accused Baldwin of being a “cocksucking fag hater,” shame on you. I would never ever hurl such a heinous epithet at my favorite Baldwin brother.

In fact, an acoustic analysis will show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that what I really said was: “Alec Baldwin, stop sucking your thumb and cook the friggin’ turkey.”

Back on planet Earth, Baldwin’s explanation for his latest homophobic outburst has about as much credibility as my friggin’ turkey. After a TMZ video last week showed him calling a paparazzi a “cocksucking fag,” Baldwin insisted that he had said “cocksucking fathead” and that an acoustic analysis would prove it.

Oh, really? Even Jack Donaghy wouldn’t buy that one, not to mention Jack Ryan, and Baldwin played them both.

MSNBC, where Baldwin has a new weekly talk show, isn’t buying, either. It suspended him for two weeks. Though MSNBC says “Up Late” will return Nov. 29, Baldwin wrote in his Huffington Post blog that “Late” may be toast. No comment from the network.

Thankfully, Baldwin quickly dropped his single-bullet theory. He admitted he had said “fag” to the photographer taking shots of him and his family outside their New York apartment, but he insisted he didn’t know that “cocksucker” might be offensive to gays.

As much as I deplore political correctness, Baldwin’s got to go. Just last week in this space, I opined that I was sick of “sorry,” and Baldwin’s sudden contrition is no exception. Despite the actor’s liberal bona fides, MSNBC cannot justify keeping him on the air in the name of free speech.

Baldwin’s homophobic vitriol was not a one-time thing. It happened before, and it likely will again. MSNBC’s biggest star, Rachel Maddow, is an out-and-proud lesbian. How can she overlook her colleague’s behavior when it hits her where she lives? At some point, couldn’t she say to her bosses, “It’s him or me?”

If, by some chance, MSNBC chooses not to cut Baldwin loose permanently, it leaves itself open to charges of hypocrisy. In 1993, the network fired host Michael Savage after he labeled a caller a “sodomite” and said he should “get AIDS and die.”

Granted, Savage said it on the air. Baldwin prefers real life.

For Baldwin, homophobia is part of a larger issue – uncontrolled rage. When his ire is raised, for whatever reason, Baldwin’s go-to mode is annihilation, and there will be blood. Remember, this is the same guy who in 2007 told his daughter in a voicemail that she was a “thoughtless little pig.” At the time, she was 11.

Politically, Baldwin’s heart might be in the right place, but his mouth follows no such allegiance. Had he muttered the N-word, he’d be history at MSNBC. Why should homophobic slurs be any different?

A network whose tagline is “Lean forward” can ill afford to have a host who continually falls in the opposite direction, hoisted by his own petard. Alec Baldwin isn’t a talk-show host. He’s a punch line.

Hit the road, Jacks.