Like everyone, I was pretty repulsed by the way Baldwin talked to his kid. And Lord knows I’m not quick to give Baldwin the benefit of the doubt. But I think it’s worth keeping in mind that Baldwin’s daughter may be very troubled. Moreover, Kim Bassinger should be ashamed of herself. Releasing that tape as an act of vengeance against her daughter’s father was disgusting too.

I’m not letting Baldwin off the hook, by any means. But if you’ve ever been around messed up families there’s a lot of blame to go around. And sometimes the people who lose their temper the most egregiously are not necessarily the ones deserving of the most blame. In the big picture, the parents are to blame. But who knows the full back story of what this kid did to drive Baldwin to be such a jerk or, rather, to express his jerkiness so forthrightly? Which of course, begs the question. What did Baldwin do to her before this that made her the way she is now? In other words there are chickens and eggs lined up far beyond the horizon and we’re looking at one tiny glimpse of it all.

Again, my point isn’t to defend Baldwin, merely to say that the ugliness of troubled families is difficult enough to grasp when you have a lot of information, but impossible to understand from this small and sad window on the Baldwins.