January 19, 2010 | 10:35 pm

Mel Gibson gets defensive about his anti-Semitic past [video]

Posted by Danielle Berrin

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Mel Gibson took Ricky Gervais’s Golden Globe dig with a lot more aplomb than he displayed this morning on KTLA.

In an interview with reporter Sam Rubin about his upcoming film, “Edge of Darkness” Gibson got a little testy when Rubin referenced “what happened before”—aka Gibson’s 2006 drunken anti-Semitic tirade. 

“Some people are gonna welcome you back and other people are gonna be like ‘He should never come back,’” Rubin said.

“Why?” Gibson deadpanned.

“Because of what happened before..”

“What happened before?”

“..the remarks that were attributed to you…”

“That were attributed to me, that I didn’t necessarily make,” Gibson said. Then he stumbled a bit. “I gather you have a dog in this fight?”

“Pardon me?”

“You have a dog in this fight? Or are you being impartial?” Gibson asked.

At which point a voice in the background groaned “okay” or something like that and Gibson concluded, “Well I’m back and I hope people will graciously accept me back.”

By “people” Gibson means all the people he continues to offend by denying he ever said anything offensive. Rubin, who was clearly taken aback during the conversation, said he wished he would have confronted Gibson head on. “As both a Jew and a human being, I was really offended by what he said in 2006; it never really seemed to me that he apologized,” Rubin told his colleagues at the anchor desk. He said he’s still “in conflict” over the issue and “should have told” Gibson.

Does Mel deserve to be absolved of his sins?

You be the judge: