Today is the sixtieth anniversary of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. It occurred on April 18, 1942. It was our first response to Pearl Harbor, a little over four months after the attack.

Of the many irritating things about the movie Pearl Harbor (I finally saw it on pay-per-view a couple weeks ago), and there were many, the worst was casting Alec Baldwin as Doolittle. Though at least, by playing a hero, it did require him to actually act.

I usually don't like Baldwin (I was just telling somebody today that I much prefer his self-deprecating turns on Saturday Night Live, especially the "Schwetty Balls" sketches). But I kinda liked him as Doolittle -- he fit into the old-fashioned larger-than-life-hero mold of that movie rather well. And the simple fact they presented this important, yet overlooked, historical battle made it all worthwhile.

Incidently, my dad sneered at Baldwin's portrayal of Doolittle. He had met Doolittle in the early 50s and-well-Alec is no Doolittle.

Yes, I met him when I worked at the Aerospace Corporation in the early eighties. It was a supreme miscasting.

The casting of Alec Baldwin was fairly asinine, I will grant you. Even worse, however, was the notion that two fighter pilots would be assigned to a mission using two-engine B-25 bombers.

As I said, there were *many* problems with the movie.

Baldwin..Baldwin..Baldwin....isn't that ...ugh, that french guy?