Opinion

OPINION: Inviting Alec Baldwin To Dinner In Eleanor Roosevelt’s Honor Is A Disgrace

YouTube and Getty Images

Jennifer Horn Former Chairman, New Hampshire Republican Party
Font Size:

On July 25, 2016, Michelle Obama stepped to the microphone at the Democratic National Convention and moved the crowd with a powerful and passionate speech that brought the delegates to their feet when she famously said, “When they go low, we go high.”

As of this tonight, however, you can officially call an end to any attempt by today’s Democrats to even pretend to aspire to the moral high ground. We thought they had hit the lowest possible point when Sen. Diane Feinstein — or someone in her immediate circle — manipulated a sexual assault victim for purely political purposes when she leaked a confidential letter from Dr. Christine Blasely-Ford about Ford’s experience of sexual attack while a teenager.

And if that wasn’t low enough, the New Hampshire Democratic Party is having their own “hold my beer” moment this Sunday evening when Alec Baldwin headlines their annual fundraising dinner, proving that they can go even lower.

For years, this event was labeled “The Jefferson-Jackson Dinner.” Then, in a fit of political correctness, Ray Buckley, chairman of the NHDP (and vice-chair of the DNC and president of the Association of State Democratic Chairs), changed the name last year to the Kennedy-Clinton dinner — just in time for the advent of the #MeToo movement.

The irony was too much, even for Democrats.

So they have once again renamed their venerable dinner in honor of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a safe bet that should have withstood the force of political winds. That is, until Mr. Buckley invited Alec Baldwin to headline an event that is supposed to celebrate the accomplishments of one of the greatest women activists in American history.

Alec Baldwin is among the worst of the political celebrity class. An angry, entitled, homophobic, racist, emotionally abusive actor with a long history of being hostile toward women, and, apparently, considering a run for President, Baldwin is being warmly embraced by New Hampshire Democrats.

I actually find his SNL impersonations of President Trump quite amusing. He is good at what he does on the sketch show. But the very idea of Baldwin as a voice for society’s most vulnerable victims — those who the Democratic Party claims to represent — is ludicrous.

Baldwin’s history of physical assaults, racist and homophobic statements and emotionally abusive verbal attacks on women is well documented.

G. N. Miller, an African-American photographer, claimed in 2013 that Baldwin called him the n-word, a “coon,” a drug dealer and a crack head. In the same incident, Baldwin physically grabbed a female reporter and told her he wanted to choke her “to death.”

In another incident, he is accused of shouting at a male reporter, “I know you got raped by a priest or something … you little girl.” He tweeted at another reporter that he was a “toxic little queen” and promised he was going to find the man and “f**k [him] up.”  He was fired from his MSNBC show for a “foul-mouthed-homophobic rant” against a paparazzi, calling him a term I am unwilling to write here.

His ex-wife, Kim Basinger, has called him a bully, an understatement when you consider his most abusive verbal assault to date was directed at his own daughter. In 2007, when Ireland Baldwin was just 11 years old, her father left a now-infamous message on her voicemail.

“You don’t have the brains or the decency as a human being. I don’t give a damn that you’re 12 years old, or 11 years old, or that you’re a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the a** who doesn’t care about what you do as far as I’m concerned. Once again, I have made an a** of myself trying to get to a phone. You have humiliated me for the last time with this phone.”

He went on to call her a “rude, thoughtless little pig” and threatened her bodily harm when he said he would fly to LA to “straighten her ass out.”  Last year, he complained to “Good Morning America” that people still hold that violent verbal assault on his own daughter against him.  Can you imagine?

In spite of all of this, New Hampshire’s all-female, all-Democratic, federal delegation has been silent. Nary a word of protest has come from New Hampshire Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan or Reps. Anne Kuster and Carol Shea-Porter. They are assumed to be attending the dinner to hear Baldwin’s keynote speech tonight.

Eleanor Roosevelt led a truly inspirational life, an example of strength, principle, and purpose for all. Perhaps her greatest contributions were as a delegate to the United Nations original Human Rights Commission. Roosevelt wrote parts of the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and gave a powerful and passionate speech on its passage. Hers was an American life worth celebrating by both parties.

I imagine, however, that Eleanor Roosevelt would be mortified to have her name associated with the efforts of the New Hampshire Democrats tonight, and I am certain she would never invite Alec Baldwin to dinner.

Jennifer Horn is the former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party.


The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.