The actor and potential mayoral hopeful had a late Twitter session overnight, as he’s been known to do, in which he answered questions from followers. At the end, he went on a particularly uncomfortable tangent. “Do you think Bin Laden was behind 9-11?” he wrote, followed by two messages about the counter-terrorist exercise Amalgam Virgo, a favorite talking point of the truther movement. When Baldwin was asked if it was “a little late to make that accusation” by a follower, he replied, “what ‘accusation?’” and concluded: “9-11 …….. what have we learned?”
For one, we’ve learned that people are not generally thrilled when September 11 is invoked with doubt as to its perpetrators, whether it’s a joke or not. Baldwin, who’s hosting a public forum next month about 9/11, is a noted provocateur and a master with the press, so it’s possible that he’s poking fun at the truther contingent or just getting himself some attention. But even if that’s the case, he’s doing so in a way ambiguous enough to raise eyebrows.
Is this his way of showing us that he’s not interested in running for political office after all? If not, he could always say he was hacked. We’ve reached out to Baldwin’s people for clarification and will update if we hear back.
Update: Through a spokesman, Baldwin said this afternoon that his tweets were “absolutely not casting doubt on the issue of Osama Bin Laden’s role in 9/11.” He also took to Twitter to talk about last night’s vague messages: “As the 10th anniversary of the attacks approaches, I am keenly interested in what public opinion is re the aftermath of 9-11.”
Additionally, Baldwin wants to leave no ambiguity as to his knowledge of magazines:
Alec Baldwin [Twitter]
