Is That Legal?

I might agree in most cases, but I've been around a lot of drunk people. Never been around someone who starts hurling racist accusations around if they didn't have that running through their head sober. (And I've know people who both did and did not have those views sober, and seen both sorts drunk.)

People can get irrationally angry, sad, whatever when they're drunk. But suddenly and inexplicably racist? Not so much.

I agree with Paperwight. It is mighty strange that when pulled over for drunk driving, his first thought is of Jews.

Although I did have a friend in college who liked to give biology lectures when drunk.

Yes, as a borderline alcoholic and official barfly, I see drunks all the time, sometimes in the mirror. While intoxication leads to leering, lechery, anger, and assults, I have never seen it lead to people blaming "the Jews."

Anyone who buys into de Becker's argument is either looking for a reason to excuse Gibson or simply hasn't spent enough time around boozehounds.

I think I've been around enough people who under enormous stress and full of anger have said things they don't really mean that I incine toward de Becker's forgiveness of Gibson. I know I'm not behind the urge to "boycott" Gibson that de Becker is responding to. Gibson likely is an anti-semite, but I'd rather he do what he did--confess publicly that his words had been "despicable"--than be made a martyr.

I've got two problems with de Becker's explanation: 1. What Gibson said at the scene and 2. what he said in his apology.

1. If Gibson had told the officer something like, "You look like a f--king kike. I hate Jews!" I could have shrugged it off as just a stupid, drunken rant. But "Jews started all the wars"? That's certainly not on any list of pointlessly cruel things to say to say to minorities that I've ever seen.

2. Gibson wants our help in "understanding where those vicious words came from." Yes, that's a real mystery. Maybe he once had a Jewish teacher who was cruel to him, and the memory was lodged in his subconscious. Or maybe, just maybe, it's somehow connected the fact that his father -- who he says never lied to him -- is a Holocaust denier and a raving anti-Semite who believes that the "Zionists" control just about everything. What's next? Is Mel going to hire a team of physicians to determine whether anything he ate or drank that night might account for his erratic driving and loss of self-control? I'm sorry but this "good man in the grip of forces he doesn't understand" pose just doesn't wash.

I think the Asia Times' Spengler got it about right. Proclaiming himself a paranoid schizophrenic might not have helped Mel's reputation, but at least it would have been believable.

I also think the whole thing's been blown out of proportion. Since when have the antics of messed-up movie stars been a subject of national controversy? So Mel Gibson has issues with Jews. Big deal. He isn't the first bigoted celebrity in the world, and I'm sure he won't be the last.