Friends, bloggers, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Gibson, not to praise him.

Like many millions of others, I lost a great deal of respect for Mel Gibson yesterday. If I lost more than most, it’s because I had more than most. Hollywood tells fables of courage and goodness, but offers precious few examples of true goodness, and true courage. Gibson was one of the few.

The world of celebrities is the world of pampered “bad boys”: whoremongering, pill-popping, arrogant scumbags. Their wealth makes their every hedonistic whim attainable, and their chorus of sycophants, groupies, and hangers-on cheers them on whatever they do, insulating them from any principles. If they desire a cachet of “goodness,” they simply say they’re against something bad, like war, or hurricanes. And since they can play the guitar or they have dreamy blue eyes, they are treated like gods.

Early on, Gibson was one of these celebrity bastards, a philandering, boozing no-account airhead. But then, for some reason, ten years ago or more, he decided not to be a “bad boy” anymore. Ever since his last rehab treatment in the early 1990s, he led a life of sobriety. He remained faithful to his wife of 26 years. He built chapels. And most admirably (at least for me), he became an outspoken advocate of unfashionable truths.
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