Was Alec Baldwin really suspended for homophobia?

Last week, actor Alec Baldwin’s weekly MSNBC talk show Up Late was suspended for two weeks after TMZ published a video in which the actor appears to call a paparazzo a “cocksucking fag.” Baldwin, who was trying to drive the photographer away from his family, later apologized. He also denied using the word “fag” at all.

While Mr. Baldwin should probably wash his mouth out with soap, the timing and length of his suspension is suspicious. Now missing from MSNBC’s schedule is Baldwin’s November 22 program dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.

In notable contrast to the entire mainstream corporate U.S. media, Baldwin did not intend to mark the occasion with the usual manure. In a blinding piece written for The New Statesman—solicited by guest editor Russell Brand, interestingly—Baldwin couldn’t be any more blunt.

“No sane person believes Kennedy was killed by one bitter ex-marine,” he writes. “To be an American today is to accept this awful truth and to live your life with unresolved doubts about your country as a result. Those who promote the Oswald theory do so knowing that some Americans are still incapable of seeing the truth, or they are still working on behalf of the portion of the US intelligence community that remains invested in the cover-up.”

This is not something you can say on TV in 2013—at least, not without Chris Matthews or some other lying hack rolling his eyes at you from the other side of the desk. The assassination of Kennedy has been poisoning America for half a century, and it’s the job of the media to sustain the cover-up. Those who go off-message pay the price. In the case of Oliver Stone, you live the rest of your days as shorthand for “nutcase”. In the case of Dorothy Kilgallen, you’re murdered. Those are two examples out of dozens.

Alec Baldwin very likely said an inexcusable thing to a man he viewed as a threat to his family, but he also promised to commemorate November 22 by breaking one of the U.S. media's cardinal rules. When he went on that split-second if widely publicized rant, he gave his corporate bosses the magic bullet they were almost certainly looking for.