Gibson: The Jews Are Also Responsible For My Drinking

It only took about 70 days before Mel Gibson decided which early morning show he would go on to try and "redeem" himself. Click the title to read an article about the Good Morning America interview.

In this, he says some things that are so absurd that I can't believe Sawyer let them pass without comment. Since I guess Mel is not going to come see me during his redemption tour, I'll address them here.

He's blaming his drinking on the basis that his movie was criticized before it was released? Was there, like, any particular group that was criticizing this movie? The Shriners? The Knights of Columbus? I think it's pretty obvious what he means here. And what's this crap about having his rights as an artist and a Christian violated? Is there some Bill of Rights that provides extra rights for Christians and artists? Can I see a copy of that, or does it only exist at the bottom of a tequila bottle?

This was a warm-up for his comments about Israel's war in Lebanon and his concern (since his 20's!) with the problems in the Middle East.

Forget for a minute your own opinion about's who or what is to blame, and concentrate on Mel's words. Gibson says there is a "conflict", and that the Jews are not "blameless" in the conflict.

A conflict has to have two sides, so in this context, it's obvious that in his view the conflict is between Israel and Lebanon (or Israel and other Middle East countries). And if Mel says the Jews are not blameless, then in his view the blame must be spread between Israel and Lebanon and other unspecified Middle East countries. And don't forget, he's been concerned about this since he was in his 20's.

So if blame is to be spread around, why when he was pulled over drunk, was he only ranting and raving about Jews? Shouldn't he have been doing a roll call of all the countries involved in the conflict and the relative percentage of blame they were responsible for?

I haven't seen the interview, but did Sawyer ask any kind of follow-up question like this? Or was she too busy thinking about how she looked on camera?

Despite Mel trying to put on a pretty public face on the incident, I think the drunken rant and the sober interview make it pretty clear how he really feels.

30 Rock

I don't often watch shows when the first air, but I made it a point to catch 30 Rock. It is the first sitcom from Tina Fey, who is writing and starring in the show. For the past several years, Tina was writer of "Weekend Update" on SNL. Although that show generally sucks, the news jokes on "Update" were always well done. I find her writing very funny.

The pre-season buzz was that the pilot was weak, and they did reedit and recast some of the show. The show was good, but not without its problems. However, it is 1,000 times funnier than most of the sitcom crap on network television. The people that make it a point to watch Yes, Dear will never get the show. Give it a shot, or else it will be replaced by a sitcom about a fat guy with an improbably hot wife, their cutie-pie kids, and the wacky next-door neighbor.

My favorite joke: Tina's character came to work casually dressed, but has to attend a hastily arranged fancy lunch. She goes down to the wardrobe department of the TV studio and demands the guy working there find her something to wear. He finds something, she takes it, and as she leaves the guy says, "You're the same size as Laura Bush".

Washington Post Corrects Critical Error

The Washington Post runs a section called "Free For All", where people usually whine if they feel their pet cause is somehow demeened in print by the Post. However, they sometimes run important corrections, like the following which appeared on 10/07/06:

To avoid yet another distortion of history, please advise your staff that Sgt. Schultz in "Hogan's Heroes" was not a concentration camp guard [Washington Sketch, Sept. 29].

The show was set in a Luftwaffe prisoner-of-war camp, a Luftstalag. POW camps were not considered to be concentration camps.
-- Jacques H. Croom
Potomac

They also ran an old publicity still of Hogan and Klink with the article.