House Republicans have taken a decent share of ridicule over their cinematic motivational rituals, but now, they’re even taking friendly fire over their use of the film Braveheart‘s central character, William Wallace, to get pumped about the payroll tax cut fight. In an interview with Fox Business’s Connell McShane, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) said he was in the Braveheart meeting, and was thinking “Mel Gibson was also in Gallipoli, which was one of the worst military defeats ever.”

Glenn Beck‘s star may have risen higher than ever when he arrived at Fox News, but long before he was drawing on chalkboards and counting czars on his hands he was up to all sorts of mischief at Headline News, where his program was a bit more of a pop culture hodgepodge than a daunting, consistent barrage of information on how the world may or may not be ready to call it a lifetime. Beck was also more prone to interviewing guests, and one night entertained the legendary Mr. T, who he somehow got to comment on the Mark Foley scandal.

Tonight has not exactly been a pleasant night for Ed Schultz, who temporarily ended his career at MSNBC tonight with a heartfelt apology to Laura Ingraham for calling her a “slut” twice on the radio. But he didn’t have the last say on the scandal of the night– that went to fellow Schultz victim Eric Bolling, who discussed the comments with his panel and even offered to “help” Schultz if his lashing out was a product of “drinking or doing drugs.”

Thanks to our friends at BuzzFeed, here’s a run down of all the funniest, weirdest, most disturbing, and all around best viral stories of the past week!

“What a week this has been for bigotry,” remarked Judith Timson in The Globe and Mail. Dior designer John Galliano lost his job after video came out of him making anti-Semitic comments. Then there was Julian Assange’s claim that a group of Jewish journalists was out to get him. And Glenn Beck compared Reform Judaism to “radicalized Islam.” But the highest-profile case of it came amid revelations that Charlie Sheen called his manager a “stoopid Jew pig” and referred publicly to his boss Chuck Lorre as “Chaim Levine.” Lots of reporters noted what appeared to be a rise in these incidents in recent days, leaving some concerned about a changing attitude toward Jews. Is this a legitimate worry? Writers for Jewish publications weigh in:

Ricky Gervais has received a ton of attention for his allegedly caustic style of hosting the Golden Globes Sunday night. Some even found his comedic lack of civility directed to the celebrities in attendance quite entertaining, making another dreadful awards showmore palatable. Turns out that Gervais wanted to open the show with a sight gag that the show’s producers found far too controversial to allow it to go on as planned. Fortunately, during an appearance on TBS’ Conan O’Brien show, Mr. Gervais revealed the gag.

There were no shortage of media disaster’s this year: from a politician threatening to kill a reporter, a movie star threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend, a Prime Minister killing his own political career, and a CEO trying to “top kill” an oil spill, there’s lots of lighthearted embarrassment and shame to go around.

Here, without further ado, are 2010′s ten worst media disasters:

Talking to CNN’s Larry King in an interview aired Wednesday night, Oksana Grigorieva said she recorded the infamous phone call with her ex, Mel Gibson, because she thought he was going to kill her, and she wanted to leave evidence behind for her mother, “to be able to prove that if I’m dead that this is who did it.”

Poor racists. In this digital age, they can’t even go on an old-fashioned, bigoted rant without having it secretly recorded, uploaded onto the Internet, and seen around the world. The Hingham, MA, woman below may not be a celebrity on par with Michael Richards or Mel Gibson, but her obscenely racist and eventually violent tirade against a postman is making her famous in her own way. Oh, and the recipient of the ugly tirade? He allegedly lost his job because of it. Wait, what?

Last week, it was reported that Mel Gibson would begin the first phase of Operation: Make People Forget That Whole “Pack Of N**gers” Comment by making a cameo appearance in The Hangover 2. Now though, it looks like he’s going to have to find another mainstream comedy to try and appear not insane in as he’s been kicked off the film following a protest from the cast and crew.

Not surprisingly David Letterman got in on the Rick Sanchez mockery last night devoting his top ten list to the former CNN anchor. Letterman claimed to have never heard of Sanchez prior to last Friday and sidekick Paul Shaffer chimed in, asking “if a guy is anti-Semitic and no one is listening is he still anti-Semitic?” Ouch and yes.

Well, I guess the residual Lethal Weapon love is stronger than anyone would guess. Perhaps more surprising than the news that Mel Gibson is a bit of a crazy person is the news that most Americans really don’t care. Despite numerous tapes featuring F-words, C-words, N-words, and a couple Q-words, a poll by CBS and Vanity Fair has shown that the scandal will have no effect on whether or not 76% of Americans will see future Mel Gibson movies.

Earlier this year, a juror in a high-profile case came forward with a shocking allegation: after reaching a verdict, her peers conspired to cover up her dissent and to develop an untrue representation of how their decisions were reached. As evidence, she presented a number of emails between the jurors. The New York Times carried the story that Monday on its front page, below the fold; CNN hosted the emails on its site.

Now that the initial shock of the Mel Gibson tapes released by RadarOnline has worn away, much of the conversation has turned to whether or not they will be admissible in the bitter custody battle between Gibson and Oksana Grigorieva. However, Dan Abrams, NBC’s Chief Legal Analyst and Mediaite’s founder, appeared on the Today Show this morning to discuss another wrinkle in the case; the tapes may not have been recorded legally.

We heard a lot from Mel Gibson last week, and a little from his ex, Oksana Grigorieva.

FNC’s Geraldo Rivera found a way to further the story this weekend – an exclusive interview with Violet Kowal, the possible former porn star who said she had an affair with Gibson.

Today’s New York Times op-ed pages are all fired up…in fact they’re almost bloggy. I was going to confine this post to Tom Friedman‘s assessment of CNN’s decision to fire Octavia Nasr, but how to resist Frank Rich who manages to connect Mel Gibson‘s abusive tirades with the current state of politics (and Fox News) in this country.

Is Mel Gibson attempting to flee the country in the hopes of escaping the phenomenally bad press surrounding him since a series of abusive phone conversations between himself and former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva have been made public? Um, maybe? Britain’s the Daily Mail is reporting that Gibson has sold his New York mansion for more than $10 million less than the asking price and is in the process of doing the same with his Malibu home. There’s more.

On last night’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann unloaded on Glenn Beck for a remark he made that implied that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. Calling Beck “anti-Semitic” (when teasing the segment), Olbermann also invoked recent race-ranter Mel Gibson, and mocked Beck’s elevation of Roger Ailes to Civil Rights hero, before chewing over the whole thing with Common Nonsense author Alex Zaitchik.

Alright, I’m going to be honest. When I wrote up yesterday’s Mel Gibson tape, I foolishly thought that that would be the last one. I was reaching for things to say about that tape and now I’m really in trouble. As clockwork as the Saw series (and about as unpleasant to endure), a new tape has appeared on RadarOnline.com. Check out the colorful new profanity after the jump.

Thanks to the website RadarOnline, tapes of Mel Gibson berating his girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva have now become public. While the audio of the actor are undeniable evidence of Gibson’s troubled mind, there is legitimate question as to whether or not they are admissible in a court of law, which is particularly germane given that Gibson’s camp has recently claimed that the audio files have in some way been manipulated. NBC’s Chief Legal Analyst (and Mediaite founder) Dan Abrams appeared on Today this morning to provide his legal expertise on the tapes.

Well, I don’t know what to say. Yet another Mel Gibson tape has been released. At what point do these start getting old hat? I mean he’s kind of a one hit wonder. In this recording he goes back over well-worn territory like his desire to burn Oksana Grigorieva’s house down and his insistance that she perform a certain sexual act on him first. Many people are saying Gibson’s career is over because he’s obviously disturbed and a racist. I think it’s over because he clearly doesn’t have much range.

RadarOnline has released new audio of Mel Gibson ranting and threatening violence to Oksana Grigorieva, the mother of his 8 month-old child. This is the third such audio, which reveals more name calling and racially insensitive terminology (the first two can be listened to here and here.) Not much to say about this audio as it sadly, sort of speaks for itself.

So America, who’s your favorite racist? Today, Glenn Beck focused a long segment on comparing the media’s wall to wall coverage of Mel Gibson’s racist tirade to the comparative silence on the Black Panther voter intimidation story. Showing similar (and similarly hate-filled) videos from Gibson and Black Panther King Samir Shabazz, Beck wondered aloud what possible motivations could be behind the news media favoring one over the other.

Whoopi Goldberg spoke up today in support of Mel Gibson. Faint support to be sure…but support nonetheless. On The View this morning Goldberg said she was unwilling to call Gibson a racist, despite the offensive and abusive language he has been caught on tape using.

RadarOnline has released new audio of Mel Gibson ranting and threatening violence to Oksana Grigorieva, the mother of his 8 month-old child. To say that the actor/auteur sounds aggrieved in the following clip would be an understatement in the largest scale, as Gibson repeatedly threatens to “come over there” in the most threatening way imaginable. Again, it now seems impossible for Gibson to resurrect any sort of career after this most damning evidence has been revealed.