Gibson's Damage Control

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 2, 2006 — -- Whether Mel Gibson has a third statement lined up is anybody's guess. The disgraced star, who unleashed a barrage of anti-Semitic bile Friday, apologized a little bit on Saturday before eventually apologizing a lot more on Tuesday.

After all the apologizing, is Gibson going to be able to resurrect his career, and is his public relations team doing a good job of trying to save it?

Certain prominent Hollywood figures believe that Gibson can escape long-term harm to his reputation by following the example set by the likes of Hugh Grant. He needs to use America's talk show culture to his advantage, they say.

"He'll apologize, he'll do some community service, he'll pay some money to a Jewish charity, he'll appear on Leno and Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel and look very sad and upset. He'll get a huge round of applause from the audience, he'll probably go to Israel and say something there and that will be the end of it."

This synopsis was not from Gibson's spin machine but actor Ben Stein, who admitted to being "shocked, astonished, disgusted, dismayed (and) really horrified" when he heard what Gibson said during his arrest.

Not everyone thinks Gibson will have it so easy.

"I don't think there is a path out of this," said Michael Levine of LCO publicity, who argued that the hate-filled comments Gibson made during his arrest on suspicion of drunken driving make this a very different case from Grant's ill-advised tryst with prostitute Divine Brown. "I don't think he can restore his career."

However, Levine thinks Gibson's publicity department followed the "general basic rules of crisis management -- humility, speed, contrition and personal responsibility," and that the actor has been well represented.

"They have done an extraordinarily good job with a perfect storm nuclear disaster," he said.

Other experts in the field of public relations disagree and believe that the situation has not been handled well.

"He should've stayed low-key for a while as the media attention will die down soon," said Jonathan Bernstein, president of Bernstein Crisis Management.

Gibson issued a statement in the immediate aftermath of this arrest and a lengthy second statement to the media early Tuesday in which he asked "for forgiveness."