Of many things

You have to hand it to Mel Gibson. Whether his decision to screen "The Passion of the Christ" in advance for only a hand-picked cadre of sympathetic reviewers (mostly evangelical Protestants, conservative Catholics and sympathetic rabbis) was motivated by fear, money or faith, it was an excellent marketing tool. His canny strategy all but guaranteed that the mainstream media, whose interest was already piqued by charges of anti-Semitism, would be whipped into an even greater frenzy by being shut out of the in-crowd.

Mr. Gibson's bizarre comments over the past few months raise the question of whether ...