Patterico's Pontifications

7/29/2006

Drunken Mel Gibson Lets Loose with the Anti-Semitic Remarks

Filed under: Buffoons,General — Patterico @ 1:55 pm



Allah has the goods on Mel Gibson’s letting loose with the anti-Semitic remarks after getting busted for DUI on PCH. He has links to the police report, as well as to a Daily News story with an amusing picture of crazy Mel.

The way the Sheriff’s Department has tried to cover up for Gibson bothers me. According to the Daily News piece, the stuff about his anti-Semitic remarks was redacted from the original police report — so that Jews wouldn’t be upset, you understand. And Lee Baca won’t release Gibson’s booking photo, even though law enforcement routinely releases booking photos.

He’s not special. He’s a movie star. Big deal. Treat him the same way you’d treat anyone else.

UPDATE: Gibson, some of whose antics were videotaped and undeniable, has apologized:

“I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable,” the statement said. “I am deeply ashamed of everything I said.”

He added: “Also, I take this opportunity to apologize to the deputies involved for my belligerent behavior. They have always been there for me in my community and indeed probably saved me from myself. I disgraced myself and my family with my behavior and for that I am truly sorry.”

Gibson further said he has long battled alcoholism, and “I apologize for any behavior unbecoming of me in my inebriated state and have already taken necessary steps to ensure my return to health.”

He added: “But I would have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for those meddling Jews.”

OK, maybe not. But he was thinking it.

UPDATE: Here’s a South Park clip about crazy Mel.

58 Responses to “Drunken Mel Gibson Lets Loose with the Anti-Semitic Remarks”

  1. Maybe Mel can play Osama Bin Laden in his next movie.

    btorrez (8373bb)

  2. Speaking as a Catholic, I find that disgusting.
    On the other hand, can’t wait for South Park to redux Mel.

    Dan Collins (599259)

  3. The Passion of the Maliboozer

    Dan Collins (599259)

  4. Better headline….

    Drunken Gibson tirade interrupted by impromptu audition for Syriana II: Attack of the Jooooos

    frontinus (4fbe1b)

  5. >He’s not special. He’s a movie star. Big deal.
    >Treat him the same way you’d treat anyone else.

    If he weren’t special, why would anyone care about his booking photo?

    CAL (86c342)

  6. Do you think Mel Gibson’s anti-semitism is related to his anger that Bush toppled Saddam Hussein? He says the Jews start every war.

    LoafingOaf (9f37aa)

  7. “If he weren’t special, why would anyone care about his booking photo?”

    Because people are idiots.

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  8. He put together a decent apology… I just have a tough time believing that he said things he didn’t mean.

    If memory from my drinking days serves me correctly, I would occasionally say really stupid things I didn’t mean to say… but rarely anything I didn’t mean.

    Chris (9824e6)

  9. Something just jumped out at me, Patterico, and I’d welcome your thoughts on it.

    Different police department, different part of the country, but same thing:

    A beat cop, in this case “James Mee” does his job properly and does it straight, then sergeants show up, cofer with HQ, and order a cover-up for an influential person (I’m referring to the arrest of Rep. Kennedy of course).

    What’s up with that? Is that how it really is?

    Chris from Victoria, BC (9824e6)

  10. Chris, does that mean every apology, by anyone, is a sham?

    Dana (1d5902)

  11. No, of course not, Dana. It simply means that I’ve finally come to believe that the people who have called Mel Gibson an anti-semite are on to something.

    I was a fan… do I believe he’s “sorry”?

    Sure, that his thoughts got out into the mainstream. Do I believe he meant everything literally? No. Do I believe he’s an anti-semite? Yes.

    Chris from Victoria, BC (9824e6)

  12. And Dana, to follow through, he may, on some level, be genuinely sorry. I didn’t primarily address that.

    I simply stated that he didn’t say things he didn’t mean, he said things that he wouldn’t have otherwise meant to say.

    A bank robber may be sorry… but he still thought about, and intended, to rob the bank.

    Those are still Mel Gibson’s thoughts, liberated into actual public words by alcohol.

    Chris from Victoria, BC (9824e6)

  13. Hey, folks, alcohol isn’t truth serum.

    while I think this incident is awful, Mel Gibson’s apology seems sincere, and he accepts responsibility for his actions–he admits them and denounces them.

    I think the antisemitism is something that was part of his early upbringing that he’s sublimated, rather than something that he’s hidden but still actively feels. It’s ugly, bo doubt, but have any of the Jewish people with whom he’s worked complained of how he’s treated them or spoken to them? That’s more important than some very stupid, hateful remarks made while drunk.

    And please, doea anyone else agree that the drunk driving was actually the worse part of this?(assuming that there’s nothing in Gibson’s everyday behavior to support the antisemitism label).

    goddessoftheclassroom (271aaf)

  14. Goddess of the classroom said pretty much what Dan Riehl said, and I agree with them.

    Maggie45 (3a5ee5)

  15. the passion of the Gibson…

    Or maybe Gibson really is suspicious of Jews when he’s sober. Maybe it’s something that he knows is wrong and struggles with –a legacy of his upbringing. How should we react to that? Should we condemn a man who is outwardly innocent just because we …

    Doc Rampage (59ce3a)

  16. Sorry or not, I think this should clearly be the end of Gibson’s career (once he gets out of jail, of course).

    Say, Patterico… what’s Gibson likely to get in terms of a sentence in your jurisdiction? DUI while 42+ over the speed limit. Where I live, that’d probably be something like 2 years probation, $1000, 200 hours of community service, and maybe two weeks in jail.

    How about there?

    Spoons (1561ee)

  17. Standard minimums for DUI in California:

    $1,500 fine ($390+ other fines and fees; different jurisidictions have different minimums, but $1,500 is pretty popular.)

    48 hours in jail, often servable out of custody.

    You have pay for a DUI school that runs 16 weeks. You learn that driving DUI is a bad idea.

    There’s an enhancement for over .15% blood alcohol; sentence can be increased. In my jurisdiction, that gets you five bonus days.

    There’s a speeding and reckless enhancement – 20 mph over the speed limit on surface streets or 30 mph on highways AND reckless; that’s a 60-day enhancement, mandatory consecutive to anything else.

    It sounds like there’s also a PC 148 (resisting officer.) I don’t think there’s a PC 69 (resisting executive officer; generally physical force.)

    Finally, there’s a very weak PC 422 (criminal threats). Me, I’d file the 23152 with whatever enhancements were right and the 148, all misdemeanors. Depending on the driving and the blood alcohol, he’d get more than the minimum for this with a falloff prior and bad behavior.

    It’s impossible to say what he’d get in my jurisdiction without more details.

    –JRM

    JRM (5e00de)

  18. Mel was sorry that he said things he didn’t mean. He didn’t say what those things were. (Definition of “is”, and all that.)

    The South Park movie had Cartman tell Kyle, “I’m sorry I called you a Jew”.

    David Ross (0b2f1b)

  19. In vino veritas

    Alchoholic intoxication doesn’t make you do anything, what it does do is suppress control. The drunk does things he would not otherwise do were he sober.

    Gibson said things his good sense keeps him from saying, under ordinary conditions. Gibson very simply has problems regarding Jews, and his intoxication let him express those problems. As one Ricky Ricardo would put it, “Mel, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.” Let’s hope his Jewish friends give him a hard time about it.

    Alan Kellogg (333d86)

  20. If he wasn’t a celebrity he would be one of many people who battle alcoholism, unfortunately not always successfully, and get arrested for DUI. Let us be thankful he was stopped and arrested and did not hurt anybody.

    Yes, alcohol diminishes self control. Yes, alcohol is NOT truth serum.

    Is he already known to be anti-semitic because his father is? Or because he made a movie claimed by some to be anti-semitic, but not by all, including Jewish film critic Michael Medved? Or other stronger evidence I do not know of (which may be ample)?

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  21. OK, from the top.

    1) Maybe it’s because of his undeniable skills as an actor, but at least Gibson’s apology reads as sincere – far more than 99.9% of the apologies by public figures in recent years. Even his reference to addiction don’t smell quite as much of ‘I’m a victim, it isn’t my fault’ as such things usually do. What impresses me most is the way he avoids the “I’m sorry anybody is offended by what I said” construction that has been so popular in non-apologies lately. He assumes that anyone with half a brain is offended, and doesn’t pretend that it could be otherwise. The only thing he could have done better is leave out all reference to alcoholism and simply say “I was drunk, and that’s my fault too.”. Grade the apology a ‘B’, and the raise it to a ‘B+’ on the curve because of the goddamn lousy examples we’ve been getting from public figures for decades.

    2) Speaking simply from personal experience: When I’m mad, or stressed out, or drunk (although I haven’t BEEN drunk in something like a decade) I’m prone to say things that I FEEL but don’t THINK. That is to say, I make accusations or statements that my intellect knows are wrong, but which my emotional side still believes on some level. This is a side of me that I’m not proud of. It is self centered to an unhealthy degree, superstitious, and given to whining. It’s also perfectly normal. This is why the ’60’s credo of ‘let it all hang out’ is so much swill.

    As somebody pointed out, Gibson was raised by a bigot; his father. He has said that as an adult he knows better, and to the degree that I believe any actor or politician, I believe him. He has also declined to criticize his old man in public, on the basic grounds that that’s his FATHER. I respect that too. My Father in law has some beliefs that I totally disagree with, but he is my wife’s Father, and family. I don’t criticize his beliefs – in detail, expressly connected to him – in public. If Gibson, drunk, came out with some ugly bigotry that he learned as a boy, before he began to apply the light of critical thiking to what his Daddy told him, that would be normal and human, and so what? He disowned the statement when he was sober, which is what a good man does of his bigotries that he has tried to rise above.

    3) As regards the ‘special treatment’ Gibson is receiving; that is the upside of fame, the downside of which is that his career COULD be over for something having no bearing on his actual skill for or performance of his job. Yes, if you are a movie star the cops sometimes handle you with kid gloves – of course they sometimes entrap you on bogus charges too, as Robert Mitchum could tell you.

    4) I grow weary of the over-emphasis on ‘drunk driving’. It isn’t child molestation, or premeditated murder. These days, thanks to hysteria on the part of MADD and company, it often isn’t even serious impairment, although this doesn’t seem to be the case here. Gibson did something stupid, lucked out (in that nobody seems to have been hurt), and (mostly) takes responsibility for his actions. I’ll get around to jumping on him when professional anti-semites like Noam Chomsky (or however that nitwit’s name is spelled), whose public utterances are received with respect and actually do considerable harm, are fired in disgrace.

    Even if Gibson is a full blow Jew hater, he has mastered the old fashioned skill of ‘getting along with the neighbors’, which most of Wholly-odd hasn’t. I fail to see what I am supposed to be outraged about.

    C. S. P. Schofield (c1cf21)

  22. 1. Hearsay.

    2. Any reason for the MSM reporting this not to slant and to make the Christ-lover look as bad as as possible?

    3. What is his position on same-sex marriage? If he opposes it is he a homophobe, racist, anti-Semite, whatever else you want?

    nk (35ba30)

  23. What’s “hearsay”?

    I agree alcohol is not a truth serum, and (in high enough quantities) can help you do things you wouldn’t otherwise do.

    But a .12 is maybe 6-8 beers over a couple of hours. If I drink that much, I don’t go around asking people if they are “f–king Jews.” (I don’t drive either.)

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  24. Hearsay, the internet definition for whatever it’s worth. Police reports are hearsay as well as news reports. I question the fairness and veracity of the reporting.

    nk, admittedly biased Mel Gibson fan.

    nk (ca8012)

  25. nk:

    It looks like they have video and audiotape. The direct statements by the arresting officer are not hearsay. I don’t see this as some worldwide conspiracy against Mel.

    Other notes: As to the apology, that’s as good as it gets, I think. He’s conceded he shouldn’t have been driving, that the officers were right, and that he acted like a jerk. He conceded an alcohol problem in a way that wasn’t an excuse. If he pleads rather than forcing a trial, I’m calling that a legit apology. (To what degree he should be forgiven is a legitimate issue.)

    CSP Schofield: It’s not serious impairment to be at .08? I’m a fairly big guy, so it’ll take me five to six beers in an hour to get to .08%. I hold my liquor significantly better than most (I can pass most of the field sobriety tests at .08%.)

    But I sure as hell shouldn’t be driving at .08%. I won’t drive above .03%. Just thinking about driving at .08% worries me.

    –JRM

    JRM (5e00de)

  26. C.S.P. Schofield, I agree with what you said and I also agree with what Patterico just said.

    .12 isn’t that much alcohol to the point where you should be that out of control.

    Also… you reasoned very well and revealed things about yourself when drinking I think anyone who has ever drunk heavily can relate to. Yes, if he reverted to spewing crap that his father taught him as a boy that’s understandable… however, his comments were particularly vile and considering the allegations of anti-semitism hurled at him in the past (probably unfairly) I believe it behooves him to address those sentiments as well as his drinking.

    I am lucky in a sense that he wasn’t.

    When I was a child (stone cold sober) I grew up in a city that didn’t have many black people. I remember that my friend had a black friend over one day when I was about eight and this is the first time I had seen a black person up first.

    I said some awful hurtful thing that I learned Lord knows where and then ran away because he was bigger and older than me.

    I told my dad about this.

    My dad is not a violent man. He despises violence and would only reluctantly spank me or my sister at my mom’s insistence… and my mother is a very good and loving woman with a little bit more steel in her.

    Onward.

    That day I received the one and only legitimate beating I ever received from my father in my life. This hurt. Physically, for sure, but mostly that my dad who did not like using force felt so strongly that he used significant force.

    It was the best parenting I ever remember from my father and absolutely the right thing to do at the time.

    It instantly cured me of racism… because I knew how much my dad thought what I did was wrong. Since then, I’ve been passionately, virulently, and genuinely pro-equality and anti-racism.

    This was especially a good thing because my dad worked at a group home for male teenagers in trouble with the law two of which became lifelong friends of his to this day, one of whom was a big black man named “Fuzzy” who had a huge afro and became my and my sister’s favourite uncle. A loving, funny, and good man. We had to get older to finally understand how we came to have a black uncle.

    Now my girlfriend is of mix race, including African we believe (it’s a bit unclear) and I’m mixed race too (part North American native). I am SO glad in a selfish sense that I do not limit my enjoyment of people based on something so inconsequential as their ancestry. I believe in judging people by their character, period, end of story and on that basis and on every other my other half is wonderful.

    Mel didn’t have the benefit of a father who believed in equality so fervently and dark thoughts can enter any person’s mind.

    I just hope that he addresses and improves upon any thoughts he’s ashamed of if he really is ashamed of them. For public safety, I also hope that the legal system takes its course for DUI.

    I remember watching my ex-fiancée struggle in agony after a back injury from a drunk driver. I have little sympathy for the perpetrators on this subject.

    Chris from Victoria, BC (9824e6)

  27. Yow,
    The guy is a whack-job drunk with a silver tongue. Screw him into the ground. As Actors they enjoy the bully pulpit of celebrity therefore they must pay a higher price. After all, he can afford to have someone drive him around. Pull his license. Forever.
    As for his politcal/racist views? I gave six years of service so he can say whatever he wants. The cause and effect of those views will silence him.

    paul from fl (464e99)

  28. As Actors they enjoy the bully pulpit of celebrity therefore they must pay a higher price.

    Really, now? That’s an interesting bit of legal news. When did they pass that?

    Pablo (08e1e8)

  29. There but for the grace of God, go I. I have said and done plenty of stupid things in my life, but they largely go unnoticed due to the fact that I am not a huge Hollywood star. I get tired of those (and commenters here) that call for Gibson’s head in similar fashion to those that did and succeeded with Jimmy The Greek, Al Campanis, etc. Virtually everyone I have met, (including me) has some form of prejudice/bigotry hidden inside them. What I have found is that most people are too gutless to cop to it. I am not trying to give Gibson a pass, what he said was stupid, wrong and shameful. Let’s see what the future brings and how he responds to the deserved criticism that will come his way. It will also be interesting, as someone above noted, to see how friends of his that are Jewish respond to this.

    btorrez (8373bb)

  30. chateau schadenfreude – the wine that goes with anything!

    assistant devil's advocate (e65608)

  31. Where are the statements and booking pix of the person arrested before and after Gibson?

    Gbear (95d12a)

  32. […] I spent my two-second investigation recalling the details of yesterday’s post on Gibson, which set forth the contents of police reports that redacted material embarrassing to Gibson. (The Times has confirmed with a confidential source that the documents linked to were indeed accurate.) Oh — and Lee Baca also personally ordered Gibson’s booking photo to be withheld from the media, something which law enforcement generally does not do. […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » Two-Second Investigation (421107)

  33. Patterico

    A nit to pick with you

    But a .12 is maybe 6-8 beers over a couple of hours. If I drink that much, I don’t go around asking people if they are “f–king Jews.” (I don’t drive either.)

    If you are a normal social drinker, you probably have a glass or two most evenings, and most likely a .12 will be a very strong buzz.

    Contrast that with a unrecovering alcoholic who drinks a liter of Jim Beam ever 3 days and can’t hardly function without a BAC of .10!

    Then contrast that with a recovering alcoholic that has remained sober for years, then falls off the wagon. It’s an even worse effect then on a lifelong teetotaler being slipped alcohol at a wedding reception. For an alcoholic, alcohol is a poison, and if sober for a good length of time, even one drink will slam ’em hard.

    Gibson’s behavior was reprehensible. But his straight-forward and unequivocal apology (contrast it with Kennedy the lesser’s ‘i was ill’ crappola) shows he actually is a friend of Bill W.

    No less than Dennis Prager defended an angry but sober Hillary Clinton from charges of anti-semitism.

    We must cease this moral idiocy of judging people by stray private comments. As David McCullough’s biography of Harry Truman revealed, one of the most courageous friends that American Jews and blacks had in the White House frequently used “kike” and “nigger” in private. He even wrote them down: In a letter home from New York, Mr. Truman described the city as “kiketown.”

    Was this unfortunate? Yes. Defining of the man? Absolutely not.

    We have example over example of idiotic and hateful speech coming from sober people in the public eye all the time… from Charlie Sheen (“9/11 was a Bush conspiracy”) to Cameron Diaz (“vote Republican if you want to legalize rape”) to Howard Dean (too many quotes to pick from). Have any of these people apologized?

    Darleen (03346c)

  34. Oh, by the by

    I don’t get this “police report” made public stuff. In my county, the police never make any part of a police report public, period. Anyone that wants access to a report prior to it being part of the court record has to make a written request to the DA.

    Darleen (03346c)

  35. I was talking about the booking photo. And I’m going from the story, which says that they are routinely released.

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  36. Bush never apologized for being drunk and a liar and being asleep at the helm when 9/11 happened. Hell he turned those episodes into positives!! I am reformed! I see Jesus more clearly! Have Gibson speak to Karl Rove and within a month or two the officers who arrested him will be on trial!!

    charlie (e583c4)

  37. Charlie, do you think coming here and being a total idiot helps your cause or something or you just can’t help yourself?

    Lemme guess, you’re so immature that little pointless non sequitur digs like that just make you feel what, for you, passes as good.

    Chris from Victoria, BC (9824e6)

  38. Seems to me Mel Gibson was treated differently in at least 2 ways:

    1. His anti-semetic remarks were considered news.
    2. His booking photo wasn’t released.

    Seems to me these cancel each other.

    sharon (fecb65)

  39. The issue is how the *cops* are treating him.

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  40. I appreciate Darleen’s comments (#34). If he indeed “relapsed” that night, that is a heck of a level to deal with. (Me, if I had 2 beers in an hour I probably couldn’t put the key in the ignition).

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  41. Hugo Schwyzer, an unlikely defender of a right-winger like Gibson, summed up the alcohol-as-truth-serum meme nicely:

    But this morning, I find myself in considerable sympathy with Mel Gibson. As someone who drank heavily and embarrassed himself many times as a result, I know this about alcohol: it lies. One of the great mistakes folks make about those of us who are addicts is that we are more honest when we’re loaded — that drugs or booze reveal our secret thoughts. Thinking back over my years of heavy drinking, I recall being told (after the fact) of dreadful things I had said while loaded. I said things I did not mean, and hadn’t even thought. Sometimes, when drunk, anger poured out in every imaginable direction. My drunken words did not always reflect my real convictions; they reflected an inchoate rage at the world.

    [Emphasis in original.]

    Xrlq (f52b4f)

  42. “The issue is how the *cops* are treating him.”

    And the answer is, is he being treated any differently from any other high profile person? I doubt it.

    sharon (03e82c)

  43. This reminds me of the story of the “The Emperors new Clothes”. Confused? Well its like this – Israeli and the Jews are hiding their atrocities behind the holocaust “dress” for a long time now. Sooner or later the World will realize their evil face through that.

    Mel Gibson is not 100% right however. Not all wars are bacause of the Jew. But many are, including 9/11 and the current so called “War against terrorism”. Its worth noting that every Islamic terrorist organizations were created after Israel was formed. Is Israels handling of the Palestanians not much different from Hitler’s handling of the Jews?

    Everytime someone says something that’s sounds a little against the Jews – all the Jews flares up and starts attacking that individual like he is the greatest villain in the World. Why are the Jews so intolerant? Does it ever occur to the Jews that there must be so many people actually who hate Jews, that there is term called anti-semitism?

    moderate_guy (67f518)

  44. Ok. I have some mixed feelings on this. I have always liked Mel Gibson’s work and I have always liked what I know of him thru interviews. When I first heard about his comments to the police, I thought he showed his true anti-semetic colors and I thought “what an A hole”. These are horrible things to be caught saying in public. Simply put…why would anyone even think to say something so hateful towards Jews unless those thoughts were in their head somewhere? For me, it would never even enter my mind even if I was trashed.

    On the flip side, I was raised with some prejudice towards blacks. My father was prejudice and my uncle IS racist. The truth is that from time to time some of these views do surface (even in me). I don’t like having those feelings but they were taught and that’s unfortunate. The bottom line is that prejudice is part of life and it can be ugly but it doesn’t mean that my father or uncle are/were bad people but it does not reflect well on either of them. Its a part of upbringing that takes years to reverse and for some nothing can reverse it. I have the luxury of never making stupid comments in front of the wrong people and (in addition) I’m not a celebrity. I like to think that I’ve been able to reverse any damage that my upbringing may have had but some of it still lingers (however remote it may be). For me, watching documentaries about slavery and watching black sitcoms and paying attention to black culture have assisted me in this area. Incidently, my father would never watch a black sitcom…ever.

    But let’s get back to Mel. In retrospect, this may be the best thing that could happen to him. Perhaps he will be forced to truly reflect on his “views” and the views he was taught by his father. How humiliating it must be for him. A man who gained the respect of so many people and now he is humiliated. Like I said…prejudice is a part of life. I think Mel needs to visit a Holocost memorial site and learn what really happened to Jews since his father taught him that the Holocost never occurred. This would be an excellent start in reversing the upbringing of his father who was misguided. Even then, he will always have those thoughts and feelings but I don’t think it necessarily makes him a bad person…just really foolish and now everyone knows about his upbringing. The whole situation is actually pathetic. The apology…its a start. He really needs to reflect on what he said, why he said it, and show real remorse not just superficial sorrow for getting caught with his pants down.

    Matt (f0dc55)

  45. I am completly disgusted about these remarks. Even more hurt that he can just get away with saying things like that. I personally feel that this will dramatically injure his career. I understand that he was intoxicated and it slipped. I also understand that everyone has their own views and nobody can tell them otherwise. But when you are drunk you do not just say what is on your mind. I have thought many things when drunk but I never say them. The information about the police deleting what all he had said about Jewish people because it may upset someone is very upseting in and of itself. If I were the one doubling the speed limit while drunk and then started bitching about Jewish people I would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. My car would have been impounded, I would have many fees, my licence would be revoked, I would have to go to AA, and take courses on what hateful racial slurs can do and lead to. It is very depressing that someone that is influential and well known can get away with anything they want to.

    sarah (63cdd9)

  46. Its worth noting that every Islamic terrorist organizations were created after Israel was formed.

    The Muslim Brotherhood was formed in 1928, 20 years before Israel, and is the parent organization of most current terror groups including Hamas and al-Qaeda. Buliding a Caliphate is the goal. Judenhass is a sideline.

    My car would have been impounded, I would have many fees, my licence would be revoked, I would have to go to AA, and take courses on what hateful racial slurs can do and lead to.

    Huh?

    Pablo (efa871)

  47. […] Sister Toldjah Hot Air (another at Hot Air) Rightwinged Florida Cracker Tel-Chai Nation Wide Awake Cafe Patterico […]

    Mel Gibson Overload at 4thelittleguy.com (876ee0)

  48. Sarah,

    Are you sure that if you were doing what Mel Gibson did that you would be treated in the way you described? Do they really require one, for instance, to take courses “on what hateful racial slurs can do and lead to”? I’d really be surprised at that. And if you did these things, would it then be treated as news on the blogosphere, talk radio, etc.? I doubt that, seriously. Contrary to your assertion, Gibson isn’t “getting away with anything.” The negative publicity for him is quite damaging for his image, which is his career.

    sharon (03e82c)

  49. Carnival of Mel…

    Mel has apologized in a decent way (finally) but here at the Moxtopia compound, we are conducting a scientific experiment to determine exactly how much booze it takes to make a normal person become a bigot. Sure, it’s a……

    moxie (650a90)

  50. Pablo

    There will always be freaks out there, like the Muslim Brotherhood with their one-sided views. There are several groups like that in the western world too. Like the “Aryan Brotherhood”. These do not have any public support as there is no real cause.

    The reason Hamas, Hezbullah etc could become what they are now is because there is widespread public support for the anti-Israeli cause in the middle east.

    BTW, I wasn’t drunk when I wrote that, nor was I driving a car. I think my DL is safe.

    moderate_guy (67f518)

  51. moderate_guy: you have a good point. in addition, one of the reasons hamas and hezbollah are as widely supported within the region as they are is that they provide public services which are otherwise unprovisioned. They operate hospitals; if one of their hospitals just saved the life of a family member, how worried are you going to be about their political activities?

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  52. The reason Hamas, Hezbullah etc could become what they are now is because there is widespread public support for the anti-Israeli cause in the middle east.

    No, there’s far more to it than that. If you think you can equate the Muslim Brotherhood to the Aryan Brotherhood, all I can say is that you don’t know much about the Islamist movement. It’s much, much more than a prison gang.

    Pablo (08e1e8)

  53. Do you realize what you’re saying? Treat him like a normal person? Personal opinion would not be on trial if he were “anyone else,” so why is it so necessary to release a drunken lunatic’s arrest transcript, in full detail?

    Get a life, seriously.

    White Horse (c791fb)

  54. I think being drunk is not going to make you say things you really feel, (I don’t get why people think that drunks say what they really mean when drunk, I know when I was drunk and would tell people they were great, I really diddn’t feel it at all-just something to say) it just makes you say stupid things. The media frenzy was ridiculous, leave him alone, he has his own demons to battle. It’s the drinking that is the main problem not what someone says while drunk.

    Kathy (a90377)

  55. Yeah, it’s funny how much flak he caught over the stupid stuff he said when he was drunk, yet we hear nary a peep over the stupid stuff he said while sober.

    Xrlq (f52b4f)

  56. I find that when drunk – the real feelings of some issue come out.Being a ” star ” of course he is going to apologise. I liked him for his actng and movies, but no more Mr Gibsom.

    Willow Pearce (bb5830)


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