Asked about impeachment proceedings in an interview on Conan O'Brien's NBC late-night television show, actor Alec Baldwin, who is rumored to harbor political ambitions, engages in commentary that should merit the attention of the Secret Service and the Capitol Police, revealing everything he learned about the political process while in the African bush:

I was in Africa, I go to Africa. I mean, ladies and gentlemen, I am in Africa. For three months I am in the bush and I come back. I come back here, and I come back to what? I mean, what is happening right now as we speak? Right now the Judiciary Committee... the president has an approval rating of 68 percent. The president is very popular and things are going pretty good and they are voting to impeach the president. They voted on one article of impeachment already. And I come back from Africa to stained dresses and cigars and this and impeachment. I am thinking to myself, in other countries they are laughing at us 24 hours a day and I'm thinking to myself, if we were in other countries, we would all, right now all of us together, all of us together would go down to Washington and we should stone Henry Hyde to death! [Cheers break out in the audience, interrupted by Baldwin's shouts.] Wait! Shut up! Shut up! No, shut up! I'm not finished. We would stone Henry Hyde to death and would go to their homes and we'd kill their wives and children. We would kill their families! [Shouting] What is happening in this country? What is happening? UGHHH!!!

Asked whether it was appropriate to incite mob violence on television, a spokesman for Mr. Baldwin insisted that all who had raised their eyebrows "lighten up." Nevertheless, Baldwin later sent an apology to Hyde "for any comments" that may have offended him or his family, saying the segment was meant to parody "the kind of hate-mongering, crowd-baiting rhetoric that seems to prevail on television these days." NBC, for its part, says it will never air the episode again and refuses to even supply videotapes of the segment.

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