The Knuckleheads of the Day award

Today's winners are actor Mel Gibson and the US Jewish Anti-defamation League. Gibson gets the award for his drunken tirade last weekend. The ADL gets the award for thinking this amounts to a hate crime.

Gibson was an idiot but so is the ADL. The actor can say what he wants, there if freedom of speech in this country. When people say the outrageous, they get riddiculed. NOT prosecuted as the ADL wants. Is yelling obscenities a hate crime? Gimme a break, we'd be prosecuting thousands for saying 'offensive' things. James Joyner at OTB wrote-

The professional activist apparatus created to fight them, however, remain. With this announcement, the ADL may be signaling that they’re going the way of the NAACP, PUSH, and many others and simply seizing on every possible opportunity for attention. It’s a pitiful thing to behold.

The ADL is crying out for attention alright. I'll give it to them. Mel Gibson and the Jewish Anti-Defamation League are today's knuckleheads of the day.

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JEWISH groups have demanded Mel Gibson be investigated for hate crimes after the Hollywood star allegedly made anti-Semitic comments to US police officers when he was stopped on suspicion of drink-driving and speeding.

Gibson's reported criticism of Jews, contained in a leaked police report detailing his arrest early on Friday morning, included the phrase: "F*****g Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

He has since apologised for his actions, saying they were "despicable", but community Jewish leaders called for Gibson to be ostracised from Hollywood, where the A-list actor is considered an industry powerbroker.

Calling for a criminal investigation into the Oscar-winning actor and director's remarks, Abraham Foxman, the national director of the US Jewish Anti-Defamation League, said: "We believe there should be consequences to bigots and bigotry."

Gibson, 50, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence after deputies clocked his Lexus sports car speeding at 87mph in a 45mph zone at 2:36am on Friday in Malibu, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

The actor was later found to have a blood-alcohol ratio of 0.12.The legal limit in California is 0.08, according to the police records.

After Gibson was pulled over, a bizarre melee ensued that apparently involved Gibson trying to escape, his alleged propositioning of an arresting officer with lurid, explicit suggestions and claims that, while handcuffed in the back of a police car, Gibson threatened a deputy, saying he "owns Malibu" and will spend all of his money to "get even" with the officer.

He also allegedly asked an arresting officer if he was Jewish.

Gibson was taken to a police station in Malibu, where he allegedly threatened an officer, smashed a payphone and attempted to urinate in a cell.

He was released after about five hours in custody, on $6,600 (£3,550) bail. Police will decide this week whether to charge him.

Controversy now surrounds the police report into the incident, with claims emerging that it was rewritten because senior officers considered it to be "too inflammatory" and feared that it could incite a lot of "Jewish hatred".