A Mel Gibson Postscript

Rob Long’s satirical transcript in the current National Review of a future Mel Gibson appearance on Larry King Live, September 23, 2007:

LARRY KING:  “From Greencastle, Indiana! Hello!”

CALLER:  “Yeah, um, Larry, I’d like to ask Mr. Gibson how, exactly, he thinks that all the wars in the world were started by Jews.

LARRY KING:  “Gotta say I was puzzled by that one, too.  Couldn’t figure it out, the logic, I mean.  I kept thinking, ‘Did he mean the U.S. Civil War?  How was that our fault?  Rome and Carthage?  Where were the Jews?’  On the other hand, the Crimea connection I almost get.  But, honestly, the rest of ’em?  So I hopped on the computer and started surfing the Internet.  Did the whole Google thing for hours and hours.  Fascinating stuff.  Discovered something called a Wikipedia.  Started a MySpace.  Had fun.  Has the web changed the world, Mel Gibson?”

MEL GIBSON:  “Without a doubt, Larry.”

LARRY KING:  “It’s brought us closer together but it’s also moved us farther apart.”

MEL GIBSON:  “I think there’s a lot of truth in that.”

LARRY KING:  “Interesting stuff.”

CALLER:  “Um . . . if I could just . . .”

LARRY KING:  “This weekend!  Barry Manilow!  At the piano!  From Greencastle, Indiana!  Hello!”

CALLER:  “Um . . . I’m still here.  I wanted to ask about the wars that all the Jews supposedly started.”

LARRY KING:  “Good question.  Mel?  Jews and all the wars in history.  Your take?”

MEL GIBSON:  “Again, what can I say?  I was drunk, and said foolish, crazy, totally unjustifiable things for which I’m heartily sorry and thoroughly ashamed.”

LARRY KING:  “Hutus and Tutsis?  Where’s the Jew angle?”

MEL GIBSON:  “There isn’t one, Larry.”

LARRY KING:  “Didn’t think so.”

MEL GIBSON:  “You know, unless there was a Jewish guy down there selling machetes and wooden clubs.  But the Jews usually go for higher-margin items.”

LARRY KING:  “Nicely put.  From Beverly Hills, California, hello!”

Rabbi David Wolpe attributes Gibson’s problem to a phenomenon noted by the Polish aphorist Stanislaw Lec:  “Alcohol and anti-Semitism cannot stay in the same body.  When you pour one in, the other comes out.”

Last week MEMRI reported that, on August 8, 2006, Al-Jazeera TV aired footage of a press conference with Gen. Hamid Gul, who “headed Pakistan’s Inter-service Intelligence Directorate from 1987-89 and whom, according to the Washington Times, was termed Pakistan’s ‘most dangerous man’ by an internal CIA assessment.” During the press conference, Gen. Gul told reporters that:

“When Mel Gibson, in one of his movies, played a role that was anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish, the Jews claimed that he was an anti-Semite. That American actor, Mel Gibson, said that the Jews caused all the wars. Now he is being sued. Therefore, all the wars, World War I and II, and others . . . .

“The Jews have always caused the wars.”

Yesterday, the SFGate Daily Dish reported that “Mel Gibson is making secret phone calls to Hollywood’s top Jewish power players to personally apologize for an anti-Semitic rant he stunned Tinseltown with last month.”

He needs to go on Al Jazeera first and apologize to the Jewish people.