The Newest Muhammed Cartoon Meme--Updated!Is that those
who are not publishing the Mohammed cartoons are only avoiding publishing them out of fear of retaliation from militant Islamists.
Of course, in CNN's case, there's at least reason to be suspicious, given their history of white-washing their coverage of Saddam's Iraq in return for continuous access. But decent, honorable, unafraid people can look at the cartoons and conclude that there's nothing to be gained by provoking non-militant Islamists.
Radioblogger has a
terrific roundtable on this subject with Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager and Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost.
I concur with Carter's opening statement:
JC: Unfortunately, it's one situation where there's no winners here. There's no good guys. There's nobody we should be siding on. But unfortunately, in situations like this, we always feel like we have to side with somebody, and so a lot of people are just siding with the cartoonists, even though their actions were juvenile and provocative for almost no reason at all.Patrick Hynes is on the
same wavelength:
I did not say – nor do I believe – that we should not provoke Muslims by denigrating their spiritual progenitor “because we are afraid of them.” I prefer not to “provoke” them because saying hateful things about another’s religion is inherently wrong. I don’t like it or appreciate it when Hollywood leftist depict Jesus as a goof-off, Devil-may-care hipster. While I’m not about to bust into a riot over it, I can understand why Muslims get irritated when their revered spiritual leader is mocked in the public square.Update: For a more forceful expression of "a plague on both their houses,"
see Jackie Lewis.
