TWO SHORT TIMERS Baldwin, O'Donnell (right)

The angry voicemail left by actor Alec Baldwin for his daughter, Ireland, has potentially cut short his television career, seriously complicated his custody battle with Kim Basinger, and—worst of all—led to this morning's apology interview with outgoing The View host Rosie O'Donnell.

Perhaps by putting himself close to the next biggest news story, Baldwin hoped to transfer his heat to O'Donnell. But just to cover his bases and let the healing begin, the gravely voiced 30 Rock star gave us plenty to work with. Among the gems he just finished spewing to Rosie (following a nice applause from the audience):

• "I got a huge bouquet of flowers from Don Imus."

• "There are limitations on what you can say and what you should say under these circumstances ... I want to say I've learned three things: My deep, deep, deep, and seemingly endless frustration about this situation, which is complicated, led me to end up saying something to someone that I really meant to say to someone else.... I took it out on the wrong person.... I realize that was wrong." To clarify, Barbara asks: "You said it to your daughter but you meant it for your ex wife." Alec: "I think that goes without saying."

• Asked whether he's talked to Ireland: "Can't discuss any of that. I either can't, or prefer not to."

[More after the jump!]

• "...How much the people in the tabloid media are themselves people who are abused, and are people who live with shameful secrets, and they make it their career to humiliate you and expose your secrets. Like the guy that's responsible for this tape coming out (we don't need to say his name). I called some friends in L.A. and asked what's his story, and they told me his story, and what his secrets are ... and you find out everybody who works in tabloid media are filled with self-hatred and shame and the way that they manage those feelings is that they destroy the lives of other people and reveal your secrets."

• "I want you to know that i have tens of thousands of men who contact me over the months who are victims of parental alienation."

• "My friends, my close friends and my family and my colleagues, they all know what's been done to me. My own mother doesn't have a phone number to call my daughter. My ex wife would take my daughter to her home town, and take my daughter all around to see all her family, except her own mother, because she has a ceaseless feud with her own mother ... She would take the kid on a tour to see every relative except her own maternal grandmother."

• "My ex-mother in law, who I'm still friendly with, would call me on the phone sobbing to say, 'What do you think you and I have done to deserve this?'"

• "Obviously calling your child a pig or anything else is inappropriate, and I apologize to my daughter for that."

• "I can't tell you how many people I know who are amazing, the most famous and privileged people in the world, would call me and say, 'God if they taped some of the things I said to my kid' ... And I've had a lot of other people say to me, 'if all of us were to lose our custody rights if we said something inappropriate, we'd have a parentless society.'"

• "My daughter used to come up to me once and say, we were lying in bed, and I was waking her up and rubbing her hair, she laughed at me. What's so funny? And she [Ireland] says, 'the way you wake me up in the morning, by rubbing my head and asking me about breakfast, it's funny, because my mom yells, 'Get the hell out of your bed right now, we're late.'" [Imitating wicked witch Kim Basinger voice.]

• Barbara Walters: "You also have a very big career..." Baldwin: "Used to." [Laughter]

• "I'll tell you, a person presses one button, and the whole world knows."

• "As a result of that, I don't want the show (30 Rock) to get hurt. In our business, there are 250 or 300 people who go to work, and I don't want those people to be negatively impacted ... so I've asked NBC to let me out of my contract on the show."

• "I really, really, really, really don't want to do it anymore, because I'd like to take a specific part of my life, whether it's three years or five years (because I have a book coming out ... about divorce litigation) ... and I'd like to take a portion of the next coming years to the cause of parental alienation and changing (laws) in State Houses ... there were bills proposed in Sacramento that were killed, about equality and co-parenting ... this is work that I want to do."

• "If I never acted again I couldn't care less. I'd like to devote myself to the cause of parent alienation."

• Hosts: "Will they let you go?" Baldwin: "I have no idea. I hope they will, because I want to go do something else ... It's not like this is nipping my career in the bud—I've been around for 27 years ... I've quite frankly had enough of this, in this tabloid age."

• "I have a dream to go out of this interview and do something else with my life."

• Rosie, to close: "Alec, I love you. Hang in there. It's not one phone call, it's your whole life. You're a great guy."

We liked him better as Pete Schweaty.

Photo: Getty Images/Splash News & Picture Agency