• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, January 4, 2012

It’s tough to say what’s harder to understand: Alec Baldwin’s suit of armor or a New York super-market chain’s indecisiveness. Baldwin seems as if he could care less about public opinion and keeps thriving, while Wegmans cares a lot and today looks foolish.

What is it about Baldwin that allows him to engage in behavior that would damage some Hollywood standouts and yet escape with barely a prolonged PR hurdle?

Is he just a lovable rebel? Does he bump up against a Charlie Sheen-type trouble line, but avoid going over it? Is he just too good an actor to hold his antics against him?

Whatever the reason -- and it's probably some combination -- the public has come to his defense. So much so, it has prompted very public forgiveness and fulsome appreciation from Wegmans. And the growing Rochester, N.Y.-based chain has again started putting money in his pocket.

Baldwin’s threatening 2007 call to his then-11-year-old daughter was cringe-inducing. That was followed by another reported incident with her three years later.

Years before, he defended President Clinton with strident comments about how a Congressional committee chairman seeking to impeach the president would be subject to stoning in another country. Liberals might have loved it (Baldwin is one), but not so PC.

Last month as most know, he was tossed from an American Airlines plane after a nasty exchange with a flight attendant who demanded he stop playing Words With Friends on a mobile device before takeoff. He tweeted the airline is "where Catholic school gym teachers from the 1950’s find jobs as flight attendants."

Yet, “Saturday Night Live” gave him a lay-up opportunity to win some support by poking fun at himself. And the star’s return on NBC’s “30 Rock” next week seems eagerly awaited.

Recently, Capital One has had him as an endorser and Wegmans had him starring in a holiday campaign. (His latter role emanated from a nearly 30-second encomium to the store -- loved by his mother -- on David Letterman’s show.)

But after Wegmans received complaints that Baldwin was an unfit spokesman following the airline blow-up, it pulled his spots a week before their scheduled run was over.

“We enjoyed working with Mr. Baldwin, but under the circumstances we thought it best to discontinue the ads,” a spokesperson told Rochester’s main paper.

Surely, Wegmans must have received loads of complaints? So many customers must have called and threatened to shop elsewhere, that it felt it had no choice but to buckle under the intense pressure. Who knows? Maybe even a flight attendants' union promised to launch some kind of negative campaign should Baldwin be kept on.

Turns out, Wegmans said it got about 24 complaints.

Yet, the two dozen were enough to get Baldwin’s endorsements yanked. (If that’s all it takes to get Wegmans to change policies, it might brace for a load of calls now from advocacy and consumer groups on all kinds of matters.)

Within hours of Tuesday’s report of Baldwin’s banishment, Wegmans received so many communications backing the star that it quickly reversed course. On Wednesday, it promised to return him to the air immediately, appearing comically weak and unprincipled.

“Clearly, many more people support Alec, as evidenced by the hundreds and hundreds of tweets, emails, and phone calls we have received,” Wegmans said in a statement. “We enjoyed working with Alec Baldwin and his mom, Carol, and would do it again. We appreciate all the kind things they have said about Wegmans and respect the good work they do for communities.”

Will Wegmans' reversal prove to be a learning experience for Baldwin or more reason for him to think he’s untouchable?