Mel as Metaphor... Options

[RoBair]

Mel Gibson as Metaphor for What Ails America

OK. Here's my guilty summer confession: I can't get enough of the Mel Gibson scandal.

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm hardly one for celebrity gossip. I have no idea who Justin Bieber is. I don't care whether Jennifer Aniston wants kids or not. And despite former Politics Daily colleague Emily Miller's compelling argument for why we should all be taking The National Enquirer more seriously, I can't stomach tabloids.

Still, when it comes to the ongoing Mel Gibson saga, I can't look away. And I suspect I'm not alone. And that's because Gibson embodies a whole bunch of different ills plaguing America right now, which we're trying, as a nation, to figure out. And as we do that, Gibson provides a convenient foil for examining our worst fears about ourselves as a country. To wit:

1. Mel as racist. In case you haven't been following all the twists and turns in the actor's ongoing meltdown, the most recent controversy surrounds a series of taped conversations he allegedly had with former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. Radar Online published excerpts of those conversations -- in which someone who sounds like Gibson hurls all sorts of insults at Grigorieva, including telling her that if she gets "raped by a pack of n***ers," it will be her fault. I'm not suggesting that most of America is anywhere near as racist as Mel Gibson. But......

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/07/27/me...t-ails-america/

[knuckledraggingn...]

Knucks you are right on with you comments on leftists and racists. I submit a great barometer of how panic stricken the left is can be gauged by the frequency and ferocity of the racist crap they invent and spread.

I take you like the young stuff.