Mel Gibson’s Washington Power Play

The Washington Post reported on this and despite the innuendo of the title, the article was relatively good concerning Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion:

Yesterday’s secret screening at the Motion Picture Association of America included columnists Peggy Noonan, Cal Thomas and Kate O’Beirne; conservative essayist Michael Novak; President Bush’s abortive nominee for labor secretary, Linda Chavez; staff director Mark Rodgers of the Senate Republican conference chaired by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.); former Republican House member Mark Siljander of Michigan; and White House staffer David Kuo, deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

“I find this sad,” said ADL National Director Abraham Foxman, who hasn’t been permitted to see the movie. “Here’s a man who appeals to the mass audience, but he feels he has to surround himself with a cordon sanitaire of people who back him theologically and maybe ideologically and will stand up and be supportive when the time comes. My request still stands: I would like to see the movie, and if it turns out I was wrong, I’ll be the first to say so.”

I love the fact that Gibson isn’t showing the movie to the ADL, yet the ADL still finds itself fit to criticize a movie it has yet to see. I wonder if they were less vocal about their opposition to the movie whether Gibson would be more apt to allow them to take a peek.

What really amazes me is the elite crowd that was gathered, and most notably their reaction to the movie:

Yesterday when the lights came up, many in the audience — who were required to sign a confidentiality agreement before being admitted to the screening room — were in tears. Some were sobbing, we hear.

“Heartbreaking,” Michael Novak told Gibson. “The Exorcist” author William Peter Blatty called the movie “a tremendous depiction of evil.” MPAA President Valenti was perhaps the most enthusiastic. “I don’t see what the controversy is all about,” he told fellow audience members. “This is a compelling piece of art. I just called Kirk Douglas and told him that this is the movie to beat.”