If we had an organized way of quantifying and scoring racist rants (seriously, why don't we have this?), the back of Mel Gibson's crazed xenophobia baseball card would carry an impressive array of statistics. No matter the skin color, country of origin, or religious affiliation, Mel has been caught disparaging you in the last few years. The N-word, the C-Word, or epithets assigned to any other letter of the alphabet, it doesn't matter. Mel is batting a thousand.

For Gibson, the results of this streak have been something of a mixed bag. On one hand, audiences no longer find him likable now that they see just how unhinged and racist he really is. On the other, unhinged and racist people now love him more than ever. Concentrating on the bright side, the whole thing has opened up some new opportunities for the soon-to-be-out-of-work actor, specifically as the new spiritual leader of the Tea Party.

Since its zenith last summer, the Tea Party has dissolved into a series of petty tribal disputes over the same old stuff that caused many of them to dump the two major parties in the first place, pissing matches over money and power. Rank and file Tea Partiers are finding that being manipulated by a new group of people isn't a whole lot better than being manipulated by the old one. Though they've had an electoral success or two, much of that has turned sour in recent months, and now it looks like the party may be on its way to becoming a one-hit wonder on the Billboard Hot 100 of history.

But now that may be changing. Mel Gibson adds new life to the mix, not to mention undeniable star power for people who haven't watched a movie in the theater since 1988. Already, Gibson's energy coursing through the party's tired veins.

"He thinks like I think," said Nevada Tea Party chairman Raymond Cist. "He says things everyone else is too afraid to say. Other than the voices in my head, he's probably the bravest voice in American politics today."

In his heated and strangely worded orations, Gibson gives voice to the unstated concerns of Tea Party activists everywhere: the desire to prevent one's significant other from leaving the house, a distrust of the government agency assigned to deal with "wetbacks," and the fear of being raped by imaginary gangs of African Americans. Has Sarah Palin done anything even approaching that? Hardly. These days she can barely keep up with the level of crazy among her own staff, let alone the Tea Party at large.

Some in the party say they're holding their support until Gibson mixes in an anti-tax rant or two, but others deftly point out that his distrust of "the Jews" is well known, and apparently the Tea Party rulebook values anti-Semitism at twice the point value as deficit hawk rhetoric. And, as much as they complain about Democrats having all the celebrities on their side, conservatives have a thing for actors. Gibson is in.

Still, there is a strict limit to how far Gibson can go with this. As a one-time Australian, his may not be Constitutionally permitted to hold the nation's highest office. Mel's new boosters don't see that as an obstacle, though. They're confident that they can find a way to bend that particular clause to their whim when the time comes. After all, Tea Partiers are the ones known for being sticklers for the Constitution. If they say it's OK, it must be OK. Besides, strict adherence of the Constitution only counts when dealing with foreigners from funny-sounding, non-English speaking countries.

By the way, hats off to the press for being more offended by the racist nature of his most recent tirade than by the fact that he was punching a woman (who was holding their baby) in the face at the time. Stay classy.