Part 1 dealt with the tragic Seattle shooting; part 2 dealt with Mel Gibson’s drunken, anti-Semitic tirade.

Now, the inevitable comedy version:

“Police said today they found a bottle of tequila in Mel’s Lexus. So let’s sum up what happened here: Mel Gibson, who grew up in Australia, was drinking alcohol from Mexico in his Japanese car while yelling about the Jews in Israel. You know where he was coming from? A Thai restaurant. Welcome to America.”

In all seriousness, just read the execrable “apology” from Gibson:

Gibson added that he had begun an unspecified “program of recovery” and asked “the Jewish community” for help “in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display.” [Boldface mine.]

He is still in denial. Either he thinks that we are stupid enough to believe this shifting of the blame to an unknown force or he really is a deeply messed up bigot who needs some serious professional help.

And, yet, Hollywood has not completely disavowed Gibson:

Guber disagreed. “Sure, I’d work with him on a picture like ‘Lethan Weapon’ or ‘Mad Max.’ I think he’s a terrific actor and director.” If he stopped working with people in Hollywood who behaved badly, Guber added, “I’d only work with one person — and that would be Cinderella.”

In other words, since allegedly everyone misbehaves in Hollywood, every kind of misbehavior is normalized. It’s just sad.

“In Hollywood, it’s the bottom line,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Inc. and an expert on movie finances. “If people go to see the movies, he’ll get to keep making movies.”

“Gibson doesn’t have to worry,” author Zev Chafets wrote in the Los Angeles Times yesterday. “Before ‘The Passion’ came out, there were studio execs who bragged to Jewish reporters that they would never work with Gibson again. But after the film grossed more than $600 million, those execs raised Gibson on their shoulders and began optioning every goyish property from Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.”

History suggests that the movie biz is quite forgiving of people who behave badly, especially if their movies make money. Actor Robert Downey Jr. still works regularly despite a long rap sheet for drug arrests. Director Roman Polanski fled to France to avoid a prison term for having sex with an underage girl he had drugged. Polanski not only finds regular employment, he also won an Academy Award for directing “The Pianist.”

Lastly, Rabbi Daniel Lapin seems to suggest that there is hyporcrisy among those who criticize Gibson harshly now but refrained from doing so when others of a different political persuasion engaged in anti-Semitism:

Let us address his apology. I have no way of knowing what is in Mel Gibson’s heart but I do know that he has no need to act obsequiously towards Jews or curry favor with us. If Gibson never makes another film he will still be able to buy gas for his Lexus. He is not a politician trying to win an election after an imprudent remark, like Georgia State Rep. Billy McKinney, who blamed “J-E-W-S” after his daughter, U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, was defeated in a congressional primary in 2002.

By the way there was virtually no Jewish criticism of that remark for which there was little apology and which was not made while Billy was drunk. More cynical observers than I suggest it might have something to do with the McKinneys being Democrats.

The same explanation could probably be advanced for why Marlon Brando’s infamous outburst on Larry King Live, about the “kikes” running Hollywood also received pretty much of a free pass. And Brando was sober.

Film maker and Democratic propagandist, Michael Moore has made the most preposterous statements about Israel for which he has never apologized and for which the Jewish community has never criticized him. For instance he has identified Israel as one of the epicenters of evil in the world, and he has explained how “..Arabs came up with the idea that Americans are supporting Israel in its oppression of the Palestinian people when a Palestinian child looked up in the air and saw an American Apache helicopter firing a missile into his baby sister’s bedroom just before she was blown into a hundred bits.”

Point taken… but, full disclosure:

On the other hand, though he has provided some financial support to [Lapin’s] Toward Tradition, I don’t feel obliged to leap to his defense. That is not the purpose behind my writing this column. [Boldface mine.]

I must say, it appears no one is covering himself with glory on this one.

[Cross-posted in Guns and Butter Blog]