NY Times' Frank Rich Blasts Mel Gibson, Drudge, NewsMax's Jim Hirsen

NY Times' Frank Rich Blasts Mel Gibson, Drudge, NewsMax's Jim Hirsen Phil Brennan, Newsmax.com Monday, Aug. 4, 2003 The New York Times is so troubled by Mel Gibson's upcoming movie about the death of Jesus and James Hirsen's new book about Hollywood, that both were viciously attacked by the paper's leading art & entertainment columnist. Frank Rich's Times column appeared Friday in the International Herald Tribune, and a modified version Sunday in the New York Times.

It is no surprise that the very left-leaning Rich has joined the media wolves in attacking Mel Gibson's film, though they have yet to see the film.

Rich seems particularly concerned by James Hirsen's new expose on Hollywood, "Tales from the Left Coast True Stories of Hollywood Stars and Their Outrageous Politics." Rich says the book is part of Gibson's "pre-emptive strategy . . . to portray contemporary Jews as crucifying Gibson"

He acknowledges the book is a bestseller (#25 on the New York Times list), and published by the same imprint (Crown Forum) that gave us Ann Coulter's "Treason"

Rich claims that Hirsen's book is thinly veiled work of anti-Semitism, aimed at Jews in Hollywood.

"The worldview of certain folks is seriously threatened by the combination of Christ's story and Gibson's talent."

Rich then makes a leap, saying he has "decoded" Hirsen's work, and the reference to "certain folks" is Hollywood's Jewish community.

His tirade against Hirsen is further buttressed, Rich says by more evidence of Hirsen's anti-Semitism, "because he makes a fetish of repeating Bob Dylan's original name, Robert Zimmerman - a gratuitous motif in a tirade that is itself gratuitous in a book whose subtitle says its subject is 'Hollywood stars.'"

By Rich's logic, Alec Baldwin. Susan Sarandon, George Clooney - and many other Hollywood stars skewered in his book - must be Jewish.

Of course, Rich is engaging in an old canard: when accused of liberal hypocrisy, scream anti-Semitism, or racism, or homophobia or whatever.

Rich is angry that Mel Gibson has been showing the film to sympathetic audiences around the U.S. (after being attacked so viciously by critics who have never seen the film, why can't he show it to friends?)

Rich writes: "In recent weeks, Gibson has started screening a rough cut of his film to invited audiences, from evangelicals in Colorado Springs to religious leaders in Pennsylvania to celebrities in Washington. But the attendees are not always ecumenical. At the Washington screening, they included Peggy Noonan, Kate O'Beirne, Linda Chavez and David Kuo, the deputy director of the White House's faith-based initiative."

"The screening guest list did include a token Jew: that renowned Talmudic scholar Matt Drudge."

In a July 21 appearance on MSNBC'S Buchanan & Drudge said: "This may be the last movie Mel Gibson makes. This is the ultimate film. It's magical. Best picture I have seen in quite some time, and even people like Jack Valenti were in the audience in tears at this screening. There was about 30 of us. It depicts a clash between Jesus and those who crucified him, and speaking as a Jew, I thought it was a magical film that showed the perils of life on earth."

When Pat Buchanan noted "The New Republic said it is an anti-Semitic film, just about flat-out" and asked "What's your take?" Drudge replied: "They haven't seen the darn film and those of us, every single person in there, and I'm not talking about tears, I'm talking total tears. It is something Mel Gibson stood back at the end and took questions for about an hour. He told me he's tired of Hollywood. That this is it. He's going to do it. He's going to do it his way, and this film, I tell you, is magic. It's a miracle. It's a miracle. Pat Buchanan, you will be talking about this when it comes out because it's something I haven't seen in quite some time."

Rich is mainly disturbed that the Anti-Defamation League's Abe Foxman was denied an invitation to any of the screenings, not surprisingly a result of his harsh criticism of a film he has not seen.

And that is true for Rich and other critics who attack a film they haven't seen but imagine what it contains.

Like other critics, Rich latches onto a report issued by a panel of nine Jewish and Roman Catholic "scholars" who read a stolen script and attacked the film.

He doesn't bother to say that the National Council of Catholic Bishops has disowned the report.

Nor does Rich mention that this same panel's complaint of Gibson's film is not that it is accurate to the historical record, their argument has been that four gospel accounts of Jesus life are wrong.

These scholars claim they were written by the Apostles in an attempt to curry favor with the Romans. The panel, Rich reports, found Jews to be "bloodthirsty, vengeful and money-hungry," according to The Jewish Week, which broke the story of the scholars' report in June.

He repeats the fiction that The Passion is based on the writings of two nuns: Mary of Agreda, a 17th-century Spaniard, and Anne Catherine Emmerich, an early-19th-century German.

"Only after Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, among others, spoke up about the nuns' history of anti-Semitic writings did a Gibson flack disown this provenance," Rich wrote.

Gibson had said that part of his inspiration for the film were the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich as she reported them in "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the Meditations of Anne Catherine Emmerich." in which she recounted Christ's suffering in great and shocking detail.

The film itself, however, is based solidly on the four Gospels, as those Evangelical Christian religious figures, all deeply rooted in the New Testament, who saw the screenings testified.

But not to worry - the film is going to be a big flop in America anyway, Rich predicts. He's worried about how it will do in Europe.

"Indeed, it's hard to imagine the movie being anything other than a flop in America, given that it has no major Hollywood stars and that its dialogue is in Aramaic and Latin (possibly without benefit of subtitles). Its real tinderbox effect could be abroad, where anti-Semitism has metastasized since Sept. 11, and where Gibson is arguably more of an icon (as his production company is named) than he is at home."

He doesn't bother to tell us what the alleged "tinderbox effect" might be. The idea that the film shows that the Romans killed Christ might incite anti-Italian feelings?

When both Charlton Heston and Bob Dylan were honored at the Kennedy Center in November 1997 Rich wrote a vicious piece charging that Charlton Heston wasn't fit to be honored in the Kennedy Center with such luminaries as Bob Dylan.

Rich went so far as to claim that Heston had portrayed a homosexual in Ben Hur, mentioning that Gore Vidal had written the screenplay and made the relationship between Judah Ben-Hur and Masala homosexual.

The fact is that Vidal, a homosexual activist, was fired by director, William Wyler. When told of the charge, Heston laughed and said "whatever you do, don't tell Steve [Boyd]" the actor who played Masala.

Wrote David Lee Beowülf in INK19 in 1998 "The point of Rich's article was to slam Chuck Heston in any way possible because of his pro-gun politics. Instead, he ended up, like many uninformed, hyper-arrogant liberal 'journalists,' being in the wrong, but who cares, it's been printed. What a jerk."

After all his blathering about the alleged anti-Semitic nature of "The Passion" Rich admits he doesn't really know what it's all about or if it's even a teeny little bit anti-Semitic.

"Perhaps 'The Passion' bears little resemblance to that script," he wrote. But it doesn't matter if there isn't anything anti-Semitic about film. "Either way, however, damage has been done: Jews have already been libeled by Gibson's politicized rollout of his film," he wrote.

I would love to see President Bush holding the book as he walks towards the helicopter. The liberals would go nuts. The separation of church and state rants would never end.

The best thing that each, and every Christian on this planet should do is to go and see this movie. Even if you have to borrow the money, all Christians should show solidarity and pay to see this movie. This would give these losers a blow not ridicule the majority and get away with it. Then other Mel Gibsons would come out and produce good Christian movies, all the time without the fear of the Hollywood left. Then, Frank Rich will be committed to BELLEVIEW hospital, where he would continue his rants to the rest of the crazy residents.

The inexplicable madness of liberal hypocrisy shouldn't stun me anymore. Heck, it shouldn't even mildly surprise me, but it occasionally still does. I look at things like this, someone skewering a film he hasn't seen, for being anti-Semitic when I have NO doubt that it's NOT, and I also suspect this same person wholly supports the "Palestinians" who undeniably slaughter Jews at every opportunity, and I shake my head. It must be sad to have to make your way through the world under the burden of a never-ending series of indefensible contradictions like this.

MM

Luther was the major point of origin for hatred of Jews in Germany. To deny that is simply denying history.

If you're one of those people that believe Hitler was acting alone in his hatred of Jews you're unaware of how history unfolded there. The Germans already hated Jews well before Hitler. Hitler and his henchmen just used it as part of their takeover of the country.

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