Stephen Baldwin: Pelosi ‘Foolish’ to Suggest Political Violence is Concern

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

With the Values Voter conference taking place in Washington, ABCNews.com's “Top Line” caught up with Stephen Baldwin, the actor and conservative radio talk show host, about the anger being voiced at President Obama across the country.

Baldwin sharply disputed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's contention that angry words aimed at the president could lead to political violence. Pelosi became emotional yesterday in recalling political violence that erupted in her hometown of San Francisco in the 1970s.

“I don't think it's a legitimate concern,” Baldwin said. “I think that again this administration feels like they have to think for its people. I think that it's foolish to even suggest that. I don't think that by any means the general public and the voters out there are stupid. They're smart people, and I think we ought to allow them to have the platform and opportunity to show that.”

Asked whether he thinks race is playing a role in the critiques being aimed at Obama — as former President Jimmy Carter suggested this week — Baldwin said: “No, not at all. I think Jimmy Carter is a dum-dum.”

Added Baldwin's radio co-host, Kevin McCullough: “It is laced with this idea that those that oppose the president really dislike him for irrational reasons. And that's not the case. The national tea party here last weekend in this city brought a little over a million people. The mall was clean when they left. No arrests were made. They spoke their mind. They spoke strongly. They peacefully protested, and to continually have this inference that if you oppose the president you must be a crook, you must be dangerous, you must be a racist, you must be a homophobe, it just — it doesn't fly.”

Baldwin and McCullough are in Washington today as part of the annual Values Voter conference. They're speaking to the conference this afternoon, and are headlining a party for young conservatives at 9:30 pm ET. More information on that event is available atMcCullough’sblog, HERE.

Baldwin also told us that he's in talks with the producers of “The Biggest Loser” to host a new reality series: “It's in development, and it's looking kinda cool. And we'll see.”

Click HERE to see the interview with Stephen Baldwin and Kevin McCullough.

We also spoke with Ceci Connolly, who covers health care for The Washington Post, about the president's weekend media blitz. Her guess is that Democrats' current timeframe for passing health care reform by Thanksgiving is a bit optimistic.Watch the discussion with Ceci Connolly HERE.

ABC News' Elizabeth Gorman reports:

In a personal account of her trip to the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, Secretary Hillary Clinton reiterates her mission “to banish sexual violence,” in an op-ed she penned for People.com today.

“Our commitment to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence did not begin with my visit to Goma, and it will not end with my departure,” she writes.

Secretary Clinton's article comes two weeks after she began her first official tour of Africa, where was struck by the brutality of the war in the eastern Congo, and where she made her first public appeal to end gender violence there as the secretary of state.

She described the experience as an “incredibly emotional, overwhelming experience.”

In the op-ed Secretary Clinton details a visit to a displacement camp in Goma, where she says that on average, 36 women are raped every day. She also visited a hospital where she spoke to pregnant women who were attacked.

“Many of these people have been robbed of their homes, possessions, families and, worst of all, their dignity,” she says.

Then turning from a personal account to an official one, Secretary Clinton says “the United States condemns these attacks and all those who commit them and abet them. They are crimes against humanity.”

Last week, Secretary Clinton committed the U.S. to $17 million in aid to victims of sexual crime in the DRC, which includes money for the investigation into the crimes and new technologies like cameras.

“We are redoubling our efforts to address the fundamental cause of this violence: the fighting that goes on and on in the eastern Congo. We will be taking additional steps at the United Nations and in concert with other nations to bring an end to this conflict.”

The war in eastern Congo has left 5.4 million dead since 1998, according to Secretary Clinton.

On the same trip, the secretary of state made big headlines for “losing her cool,” after she was asked by a Congolese student for her husband's opinion on African trade deals — rather than her own.