Dumb as a Rock

A couple of days ago, Alec Baldwin was kicked off an American Airlines flight for not turning off his phone while his plane sat at the gate.  Baldwin went to the Huffington Post yesterday to clear the air and apologize blame everyone else for his actions.  Here is Mr. 99% with the valuable lesson he took away from the experience:

However, I have learned a valuable lesson. Airlines in the US are struggling with fuel costs, labor costs, bankruptcies, you name it. It's no secret that the level of service on US carriers has deteriorated to a point that would make Howard Hughes red-faced. Filthy planes, barely edible meals, cuts in jet service to less-traveled locations. One of the big changes, in my time, is in the increase of the post-9/11, paramilitary bearing of much of the air travel business. September 11th was a horrific day in the airline industry, yet in the wake of that event, I believe carriers and airports have used that as an excuse to make the air travel experience as inelegant as possible.

So it was all the airlines fault?  The federal government played no role?

More words of wisdom and lessons from on high:

Most of the flight attendants I have ever encountered still have some remnant of the old idea of service. Add to that the notion that in this day and age, many people have a lot of important work to do, by phone, and would like to do so till the last possible minute. But there are many now who walk the aisles of an airplane with a whistle around their neck and a clipboard in their hands and they have made flying a Greyhound bus experience.

Interesting.  Greg Pollowitz at NRO notes that the "important work" Baldwin had to attend to was playing the "game 'Words with Friends' on his phone" which he freely admitted shortly after the ordeal.