O'Reilly: Elite Media out to Destroy Mel Gibson

Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly said tonight that the elite media have been vicious in their attacks on Mel Gibson and are out to destroy him.

"You have an elite media which [have] an agenda and the agenda is destroy Mel Gibson because we don't like the concept of what he's doing, basing a movie on the Gospels - we don't like that - so we are going to destroy him personally," O'Reilly said during an interview on "The O'Reilly Factor" with New Yorker writer Peter Boyer, who agreed with the host that some of the media attacks on Gibson and his film "The Passion" have been "hateful."

Boyer, who has written a 15-page New Yorker story about Gibson and his film, explained that "There are a group of folks who the minute Mel Gibson announced he was going to make a film about the last hours of Jesus Christ based on the New Testament - based on the Gospels - there were folks who were worried by that, and I'm only guessing that these columnists - these reporters are attuned to that point of view."

In his New Yorker story, Boyer made clear that what bothered these people - a group of nine scholars - was the fact that Gibson was basing his film on the Gospels, which they view as unreliable.

"Any dramatization of Christ's passion that is based on the Gospels is going to be objectionable," Boyer said, remarking that the critics "have excused themselves from the question of Jesus' divinity."

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Media Bias
Mel Gibson's "Passion"