"Back in March, The New York Times did a vicious and despicable article in which they tried to use guilt by association of the lowest kind to try to say that some fairly kooky ideas that Mel's father may hold were somehow associated with Mel, and therefore, this movie was part of a grand conspiracy. And it almost looked like a set-up job. Mel is being attacked - and this is laughable - even in a recent article in "The New York Times," he's being attacked because he's a charitable guy who has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money to build a church. I don't see what's wrong with that ... The point is, Jews have real enemies. Americans have real enemies. I mean, there are people out there who mean us harm. Mel Gibson isn't one of them," Jewish conservative Michael Medved, on CNN August 4, 2003.