If the written word were still expressed on paper, I think I’d be mourning the fallen trees wasted to provide the reams of paper needed for the feeding frenzy documenting the Fall of Mel Gibson….

I report having felt no anti-semitic impulses during my inebriation, aside from an occasional fleeting doubt about whether Israel’s strategy in Lebanon is working and an ill-advised e-mail I sent to Ace with the subject line “Are you a Jew?” in which I addressed him repeatedly as “sugar tits.”

On the other hand, seven shots of tequila would’ve had you thinking you were Goebbels himself.

I also spent some more time looking at that Day By Day cartoon,

Hey, whatever works in between KP appearances, right?

-Fat Old Guy

I think this one is my favorite: The last thing a Hezbolla killer will ever see as this “chooser of the slain” takes up the slack.

I have to consider the following: having a DWI on one’s record is bad, even for a celebrity; he had to know he committed an offense that was sure to bring consequences; and he tried to avoid those consequences and failed – thus threatening to make the consequences even more severe.

He had to know all of those things at the time, blood alcohol level or not; surely that created intense psychological pressure. What if the tirade was not brought on by his intoxication, but by the amount of pressure he was under and the certain knowledge that he had committed a crime?

I really wonder if the rant would have been markedly different if the same Jewish police officer had taken him in for another offense of similar import, one which he had committed while sober.

Am I convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was his intoxication that was the cause of his vile thoughts and words?

I’m not. How about you?

And it seems to me that, by us talking up his ostensible drunkenness on this board, by portraying his behavior solely as deranged drivel when it was actually much more cogent, coherent and focused than that (though laced with panic and rage nonetheless), by us asking questions like “does such-and-such a level of drunkeness induce thoughts and words like this?” we fail to ask whether a lot of pressure, certain knowledge of wrongdoing, and understandable (though unjustified) rage at having been forced to accept the consequences of that wrongdoing, induce such thoughts and words in someone like Mel – regardless of his level of inebriation.

Entelechy, thank you for your kind words on an earlier thread – I’ve been away from the net for a couple of days and will be posting a small follow-up on one or two of them by this time tomorrow -

A sixer of Beck’s Dark and you woulda been breaking ground on the HotAir concentration camp.

(Dayum! Where do I sign up for the IDF!)