Why? Here's my take on it

Over at the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby asks is there a "double standard":

Why is it that Mel Gibson is ripped by the media for anti-Semitic statements, and Oliver Stone isn’t?

He (and almost all of his commenters) don't really want an answer; they know. Jacoby frames it as a disingenuous question (his commenters are less hypothetical), but it's clear what he thinks:

Surely the media don’t think Jew-baiting is intolerable only when it comes from a right-wing Christian like Gibson. Surely they wouldn’t overlook Stone’s noxious rant just because he is a pluperfect left-wing activist.

Surely that can’t be the explanation for so disgraceful a double standard.

Can it?

I'll tell you what I think, for what it's worth. A highly unscientific poll (four college graduates of "a certain age" and one younger, European-born, colleague, four of whom are self-declared liberals) shows that most Americans (80%) don't know who Oliver Stone is. There's a strong tendency (60%) to confuse him with Oliver North (how much that is a feature of their age is unclear). Of that 80%, 75% recognized his movies when prompted, 50% of them adding "oh, that nut". On the other hand, 100% knew who Mel Gibson was.

In short, nobody cares what Oliver Stone says because we aren't really sure who he is. On the other hand, part of Gibson's self-made identity is that Christianity. Those movies where he claims moral perfection. The right to tell us all how to behave. And the whole perfect-husband thing, too...

That, and he's a super-star celebrity caught saying stupid things while drunk instead of at a boring press-conference.

Yeah, really. That's the point. We love to jump on drunk celebrities caught running their mouths. That's America. baby.