Sharp-eyed pundit Jared Bridges noticed something peculiar while watching the latest Academy Awards ceremony. While showing the annual film collage of Hollywood personalities who had died the previous year he thought he noticed…no, that couldn't be…Leni Riefenstahl?

"She had a greatness to her and she had amazing longevity," Sid Gannis, a Hollywood producer and Academy vice president, told the Daily News. "There was no special debate whatsoever in the decision to include her on the list, and I personally agree with it."

Riefenstahl was considered one of the most effective producers of Third Reich documentaries and Adolph Hitler's favorite filmmaker. She produced Nazi documentaries during the 1930s and never apologized for her association with Hitler, claiming she didn't know about the mass murders. Riefenstahl died at her home near Munich, Germany, in September at age 101.

Ben Stein also noticed the perverse irony: 'The evening's bitter criticism of Bush, who liberated an entire nation from a mass murderer, and then an apologist for another mass murderer getting applauded by men and women dripping with diamonds and pearls.”

Wait a second. Aren't these the same people who claim that The Passion is anti-semitic?

'I just checked Google News and there were only 13 news stories cited with the terms "Leni Riefenstahl" and "Oscar," says Bridges. 'A similar search for "Mel Gibson" and "anti-semitism" yielded 3,860. Go figure…”