Friday, April 20, 2007

Good Grief


This guy. This is the guy, right here. If you haven't heard the message he left on his eleven year-old daughter's voicemail, you're better off. It's pretty terrible, so I'm not going to link to the file. I figure you can find it on your own if you really want to. The message by itself is bad enough, but what really got me was his "apology." You know, I think that apologies have been getting worse across the board lately, but this one was really bad. Instead of apologizing only for what he had said, and that abjectly, he seemed to focus more on how sorry he was that it got out, saying:

"Although I have been told by numerous people not to worry too much, as all parents lose their patience with their kids, I am most saddened that this was released to the media because of what it does to a child," he wrote. "I'm sorry, as everyone who knows me is aware, for losing my temper with my child. I have been driven to the edge by parental alienation for many years now. You have to go through this to understand. (Although I hope you never do.) I am sorry for what happened. But I am equally sorry that a court order was violated, which had deliberately been put under seal in this case.... In such public cases, your opponents attempt to take a picture of you on your worst day and insist that this is who you are as a person.... Outside the doors of divorce court, I have friends, I have respect from people I work with and I have a normal relationship with my daughter. All of that is threatened whenever one enters a court room."

I have a hard time believing that this sort of behavior is a one time deal. One of my closest friends, M, has been receiving voicemails, phone calls, and letters similar to this one intermittantly over the years from her father, and most people don't say things that are this ugly and hurtful just once.

Here's hoping that they get all this untangled. Therapy, which I would always suggest as a good idea for anyone, might be a particularly good idea in this case.

3 comments:

Ann said...

I've always thought Alex Baldwin & Kim Basinger acted like a couple of narcissistic dunces. So this isn't especially surprising, which is what makes it so sad. His "apology" is appalling.

Ann said...

Oops, I mean Alec. Sorry, Alex.

OsoDelSol said...

Yeah, it pretty bad. I'm not too impressed.