Last night, I happened to flip by the O'Reilly Factor (I'm not a regular viewer) as he was covering Entertainment Weekly magazine's coverage of "The Passion." O'Reilly introduced the segment with:

The article contains a glaring omission, in my opinion. It fails to enumerate the vicious personal attacks on Gibson, and puts forth that the actor went on the attack first, which is false in my opinion, again. Incredibly no-one from Entertainment weekly would talk with us which is unheard-of, because they want to sell magazines.

Impressive. EW will schmooze with anyone. You know a magazine truly stands behind their work when they won't get on the air and defend it. But how many reporters, honestly, want to take the kind of attention they enjoy dishing out?

Instead, he was only able to get Lisa Bernhard, Fox's own entertainment correspondant, who'd been an assistant editor for a number of entertainment magazines. After some opening banter, they got down to brass tacks:

O'Reilly: The New York Times called him a "Jew baiter", The L.A. Times...

Bernhart: I'll tell you something... because they probably felt that it was totally irrelevant!

Wait, wait, Lisa. EW portrays Gibson as having gone "on the attack", and little tiny questions like whether he was actually responding to being called a racist by one of the nation's most popular newspapers are "totally irrelevant" to that?

Again, she's not refuting the charge of distortion. She's admitting it, and saying it's entirely justified...

Bernhart: Here's a guy... This is not Martin Scorcese making "The Last Temptation of Christ" who based this on a novel. This is a guy who's an entertainer who built his own church in Malibu. Who's put 25 million dollars of his own money behind this. This is his message. He is directing how he's making... pulling choice parts of the New Testament, and writings that have been accused of being anti-semitic. He had to know... He's a smart guy. He knew from the get-go that he was doing something really controversial. And you know, he can't back off and not talk to the press based on, based on the fact that he was attacked. He knew he was going to be attacked.

O'Reilly: He's talking to ABC News, he'll talk to us...

Bernhart: That's his only, that's his only...

O'Reilly: He doesn't think he's going to get a fair cut by any of these people, because they have an agenda...

Bernhart: Of course!

At this point, my jaw is hanging on the floor. She's admitting Gibson will be treated unfairly, saying "Of course" to that! When O'Reilly asks why, invoking a comparison between Scorcese and Gibson, she goes on to again justify what she has just admitted was unfair treatment...

O'Reilly: Martin Scorcese took no heat at all...

Bernhart: Because he didn't, because he didn't, it wasn't, it wasn't Martin Scorcese's crusade the way that this is Mel's crusade. This is Mel's crusade! The guy's built his own church in Malibu!

O'Reilly: [...] Scorcese takes no heat at all from the secular press at all, but Gibson can't put on a movie based upon the New Testament! That's just ridiculuous.

Bernhart: Well, that's because Gibson has come out! He's, he's this traditionalist [sneering again, counting on fingers], he's not, he's not ... he's been anti-feminist [O'Reilly: Oh stop!], he's use, he's using scriptures and, and writings that have been known to be anti-semitic [O'Reilly: What? The New Testament?] He knew, he knew that this was going to be a bull's-eye on his back.

Bernhart: Nobody... Everybody's only wanted to love this guy. He was this big, mainstream movie star, and all of the sudden he's got this agenda. He sort of snuck up on the media and dropped this bomb on them!

I'm not kidding, the prejudice dripping from Bernhart's lips was simply shocking. Her normally pleasant face contorts over and over into a sneer, and there's an obvious haughtiness in her tone. She's so clearly angry that her lips are quivering and making little unspoken syllables whenever she's not talking.

This is the entertainment reporter for a supposedly "right-wing biased" news outlet? Oh please. She's got a clear agenda and set of prejudices which she admits will justify journalistic distortions. (And they're far from being "right-wing".)

She's actually saying Mel Gibson can be -- not merely questioned, but abused -- because they thought he was this mainstream movie star, with a drug habit, just like everyone else, and suddenly the guy's 'got religion' and wants to do a movie on Jesus. "He snuck up on the media!" (In other words, they never would have let him become popular if they'd known he would eventually become a serious Christian.)

And Gibson has an agenda? Of course. So does every filmmaker! (Not to mention reporter, apparently.) Scorcese had an agenda. Robbins and Sarandon are rather well-known for their agendas. And let's not forget the vast scientology crowd: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman (formerly), Kirstie Alley, Travolta, etc, etc, etc. Even if it's just making money, every filmmaker has an agenda.

So it's clearly not that Gibson has an agenda per se -- or all these other people would get flack -- but it's obviously the specific agenda which is the problem.

Which justifies, according to Bernhart's arguments, abuse.

Look, I'm not shocked there's controversy. As Bernhart suggests, we should (sadly?) expect the story of Jesus to be controversial today, especially when it's told along traditional lines. Quite true!

But what's shocking is that we have this representative from the press in front of us, who wasn't even involved in another publication's distortions, yet who is also justifying telling less than half the story, and making allegations which are clearly untrue because she doesn't like his faith!

As if any disagreement could justify such a blatant lapse of journalistic integrity.

But clearly Bernhart sees his faith which as being the issue, plain and simple. She invokes it time and again: "Gibson has come out!" "he's a traditionalist!" "he snuck up on us!" "he built a church!" "this is his message!" In contrast to Scorcese's novel-based script, "he's using scriptures" and "select parts of the New Testament". (As if we could make a movie containing all of it.) And clearly Gibson's faith is causus belli to chuck away the rulebook of journalistic ethics.

In other words, this is a war, plain and simple. No holds barred.

He built a church! In Malibu!