Mel Gibson Pol Pitch Pulled

AUGUST 9--The Republican nominee in this year's California lieutenant governor's race is distancing himself from a laudatory fundraising letter written in support of his candidacy by Mel Gibson, whose recent pronouncements on Judaism might tend to turn off would-be voters. State Senator Tom McClintock, who is seeking to join Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Sacramento statehouse, has mailed the Gibson letter out to prospective donors on several occasions over the past year. A copy of the Gibson letter (with the recipient's name redacted) can be found below. Complaining that a government 'founded to protect our fundamental God-given rights is now becoming destructive of those rights,' Gibson noted that McClintock was willing to fight for such 'basic American principles.' Additionally, while bemoaning 'record levels' of state spending, Gibson noted California's inability to 'even maintain a decent road system.' Though it must be said that cops patrolling those forlorn thoroughfares seem to be doing an exemplary job corralling drunken louts driving Lexuses. So you've got that going for you, California. (3 pages)