“All is forgiven”
The New York Times and CNN, among others, are ducking their responsibility as news organizations to run the current cover of “Charlie Hebdo.” Why is it their responsibility? Because the response of the devastated satirical publication is news, and as the Times laughably says on its front page, that news is fit to print: the Times and CNN are describing the cover, but don’t have the guts or integrity to show it. The disingenuous rationale, in CNN’s terms, is that they are respecting “the sensibilities” of Muslim viewers.
In a word: CRAP. The vast majority of readers and viewers should be kept in the dark to avoid offending Muslim readers and viewers who can easily avert their tender eyeballs? When have CNN and the Times applied that standard regarding any other religious group, or any group at all? [UPDATE: Over at Popehat, Ken White extravagantly exposes the intellectual bankruptcy of the Times’ rationalizations for not showing the cartoon with a series of well-formulated and pointed questions. This is admittedly more diagnostic than “CRAP,” but the message is the same.]
The translation of this craven self-censorship is “We are concerned about offending an anti-democratic and violent minority who are successfully using threats to constrain the free distribution of knowledge and information, because we are unworthy of the profession we presume to practice.”
Ethics Alarms 
Maybe if they “practice” long enough, they’ll get it right. Unlikely, though. This is just pure cowardice, masquerading as “journalistic responsibility”.
My wife and I finished watching The Bible last night, the last three episodes of which depict the life of Jesus. One of the ironies that infuriates me about the left is their bleeding-heart defense of Islam and its “prophet”, a sick,violent, hedonistic man that is directly responsible for more continuing human misery than any other man, while gleefully celebrating and defending as “art” things that ridicule the most kind, loving, gentle man that ever walked Earth; things like “piss Christ” among others. Then, of course, there’s the inevitable “well, Christians went on rampages too”, forgetting the fact that the Crusades were a response to Muslim conquest, not to mention the fact that we’re not currently persecuting anyone. No doubt you all are aware of what they’ve been doing to the Coptic Christians lately? Assholes!
Hey, homosexuals don’t get Christian cakes.
Oh yeah, I forgot. Monsters !! Next thing you know, we’ll be chopping their heads off or hanging them from cranes. Oh wait…
“Bleeding-heart defense of Islam?”
All lefties are not Ben Affleck. Most lefties will defend anyone’s right to religious belief — regardless of religion. Much like we will defend the KKK’s right to spew their hatred, even if we don’t agree with it.
Thanks, Beth. I am grateful that I can always count on you to make rational responses to the inflammatory comments here.
I can’t let you do all the heavy lifting Patrice!
Is it time to start passing the joint around, ladies? I hope you aren’t so far out in left field that you’ve come to believe that you’ve successfully deceived anyone with that outrageous B.S. prattle above. Inflammatory? The truth, my dears, will always be inflammatory in your warrens, as you exist by its denial. Your alliance of convenience with Islam against Judaism and Christianity is pretty open after all that’s occurred. Again, nobody fooled but mindless liberals. And if you want “hate spewing”, you won’t have to go any further than your own back yard. Mindless hate and bigotry is yours to own and in evidence wherever your minions gather.
What?! Well, I guess I would be more upset if ANYthing that you wrote was true. None of it is. Your comment is a prime example of why I pay so little attention to many of the comments here and commentary from other conservative sources. You just make things up and accuse. You project onto other people what you believe about them, and God help us if we try to defend ourselves. Your statements here are outrageous fabrications, and as such don’t deserve to be refuted. NONE OF YOUR COMMENTS ABOVE ARE TRUE CONCERNING BETH OR MYSELF. (I don’t even think I know Beth personally — do I? — but I know her from her comments.) Get a grip.
But don’t such comments give you insight into the thought processes of your fellow citizens?
Yes, and it terrifies me.
Oh…you do know Beth, and would recognize her immediately.
Well, I thought that it was the Beth that you and I both know, but didn’t want to presume. Hi, Beth.
In other words, “I have no intention of listening to anything that contradicts my politically correct worldview, reveals my innate hypocrisy and cliché ridden rhetoric, and generally causes me to curl up in a corner with my Bill Clinton teddy bear”. Got it, babe.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t say “all”. Still, if you are upset about generalizations like that, you should probably write letters of protest to a whole bunch of left-wing sites like The Daily Kos (which I read every day), and let them know that they’re repeatedly misrepresenting the spirit of the left. Hopefully, they’ll publish your objection, because it seems like they’re censoring all the voices of dissent in the comments sections.
Now, where did I leave my white sheets?
Joe, You didn’t have to say “all” — you just needed to make it all-inclusive without exception, as you did: “One of the ironies that infuriates me about THE LEFT is THEIR bleeding-heart defense of Islam….” “The left” is the whole group; “their” refers to the members of that group.
Given that generalization about their (the left’s) defense — a defense, if you like, which is rather, as Beth noted, part of a larger liberality, much like going overboard with PC-ness –, the addition of “and ITS ‘PROPHET”” makes the statement unsupportable. According to PEW statistics, the country sees itself as 78.4% Christian, almost equally divided between Democrats and Republicans (Right having a slight edge, yes: if it had been an election, the Dems would have called for a recount!). And I checked out your Daily Kos example, running a search over the past year for Mohammed, or the Prophet Mohammed and came up with … nothing.
On the contrary, following is a typical Kos opinion as excerpted from Ross Douthat: “(M)any of the Western voices that have criticized the editors of Hebdo have had things exactly backward: Whether it’s the Obama White House or Time Magazine in the past or the Financial Times and (God help us) the Catholic League today, they’ve criticized the paper for provoking violence by being needlessly offensive and “inflammatory” (Jay Carney’s phrase), when the reality is that it’s precisely the violence that justifies the inflammatory content.” And proceeded to decry the Catholic League, also quoted, for their attack on the slain editor as having brought his death on himself.
You will note the finger-pointing inclusion of “the Obama White House” up front. Doesn’t sound like defending Islam or POTUS-pandering to me.
Where U.S. politics divides is on values and where it cannot come together it is almost always the fault of the politicians — on both sides — who use strategic extremism to gain votes. Your accusations are a prime example of extremism … without the strategy. It’s gratuitous. And not worthy of your usual informed commentary.
Clarifications: Douthat is a conservative NY Times columnist, and the article on the Catholic League was not part of his piece quoted from The Daily Kos.
From a more international perspective, it’s worth noting that Charlie Hebdo is itself a rather lefty publication; indeed, I think its editor (who was one of the victims) even said earlier that while he would not stop criticizing fundamentalist Islam, he would also prefer to not have people blame all Muslims for the attacks on his office (in fact, the guy was a Communist).
It’s funny… when I complain about using “men” as a general terms like that it generally doesn’t go over well. I don’t think it’s come up here, but it’s one of the things that annoys me about the radical feminists. (That word “radical” is an important qualifier, so if you aren’t radical I’m probably not talking about you) Coincidentally, most of them seem to be left wing radicals as well.
It’s mostly a form of rhetorical laziness, but it has real negative consequences. I wish everyone was more careful with broad generalizations.
Not really, unless you count the many, many comments in response to the various articles, from multiple sources, on this and other issues as not being liberal extremism, or not a representative sample of liberal thinking. I would say that the accusation of “just making this up” is itself an extreme (and baseless) accusation. Most stereotypes don’t materialize out of thin air, and this is no exception. I stand by the assertion that a great many liberals seem to sympathize with islam, if left-wing articles, comments, and people I’ve talked to are reliable indicators. As far as not meaning all, trust me, if that’s what I meant, I would defend it. I make lots of typos. Studying medicine while working and having a family leaves me with little time for precision here.
Imagine that leftists were a bowl of M&M’s…
what a dirty mind you have, aaron . . . .
Well, if the left is so 1st amendment-friendly, please explain the many times I’ve heard that Fox news should be outlawed (followed by the whole “fairness doctrine” thing), or the “hate speech” thing, which is almost always applied to things associated with the right. Liberals, generally speaking (in other words, not necessarily you), seem to think of themselves as tolerant of the views of others, but then are shocked and dismayed to find that there are other views. I’m sure I’ll think of more good examples in the next hour or two.
Mohammed the pedophile raider…
It’s kind of funny you say that, considering that Charlie Hebdo was itself a really lefty publication. What’s really crazy is that a paper with a Communist as editor-in-chief is now a much stauncher supporter of free speech than a number of “moderate” lefties (those who fell into SJW-dom, anyways).
Exactly. These organizations had no qualms in running pictures of “Piss Christ”. They aren’t afraid of offending people. They don’t have a moral objection to offending people. Unless they assume Christians aren’t people. They have a fear of being shot. So apparently, because Christians are less likely to shoot at you, you feel more comfortable mocking them. Cowardice and hypocrisy.
Well, the Christians might write them a good stern letter. The press could even go so far as to anger an extreme radical Christian group that might picket and hold signs with unkind words on them. They might scream hurtful phrases and get in the way of their limos. Those wacko Christian groups are just out of control and need to be stopped.
Now, people need to stop saying that Muslims are violent. I saw more articles than I could count stating that anyone who is violent isn’t a true Muslim. I guess that eliminates all the ISIS fighters, the Taliban, a large chunk of Iran, the so-called Muslim groups like Boko Haram in a variety of places in Africa, the government of Sudan and their supporters, Hamas and their supporters, the Saudi Arabian government for punishing blasphemers, the Pakistanis who do the same, the various Iraqi groups attacking and purging Muslim sects that hold differing views on Islam, and the list goes on and on. Are there any ‘true’ Muslims? Does even the prophet of Islam live up to this standard? So, we don’t have to worry about Muslim terrorism because there isn’t any and never has been. Case closed. Now, not-true-Muslim terrorism…. Boy, renaming the problem sure makes me feel better.
The truth is, the news organizations aren’t afraid of running the article, they just don’t want to take that side. They hate Christians because they represent traditional American values in their minds. They like and defend Muslims because they are against Christianity. It is the same mind-boggling rationale that makes well-educated academics adore Communism and hate Democracy. It is the same rationale that makes people hate Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush as the devil incarnate, but adore the two largest mass-murderers in history, Stalin and Mao. Hating America makes them hip and smart. It makes them better than the rest of us ignorant fools who cling to God and our guns. It is what makes the leader of the free world make statements like “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam”, condemning every Christian American who goes to church to worship.
This is my personal Comment of the Day.
Concur.
“Now, people need to stop saying that Muslims are violent. I saw more articles than I could count stating that anyone who is violent isn’t a true Muslim. I guess that eliminates all the ISIS fighters, the Taliban, a large chunk of Iran, the so-called Muslim groups like Boko Haram in a variety of places in Africa, the government of Sudan and their supporters, Hamas and their supporters, the Saudi Arabian government for punishing blasphemers, the Pakistanis who do the same, the various Iraqi groups attacking and purging Muslim sects that hold differing views on Islam, and the list goes on and on.”
And if that’s the standard for being a “True Muslim” then it eliminates Mohammad, the founder of that wretched system.
Who adores Stalin? Or Mao for that matter?
Stalin and Mao, for starters, and if you’re being perfectly honest, more than a few on the left by virtue of the fact that they adore communism
Lost of the left adored Mao. They adore Communism. There was a Stalinist newspaper at my University. Why do you think the Clintons went to Russia to study?
Yeah Beth, thats a shallow dodge and I think you know it. Major communist leaders are icons in many liberal circles. Che is probably the biggest but the others get thier due too…
Damn it. Did the handle thing again.
Lynne Stewart was a big fan, and so were a lot of the Black Panthers and Weathermen. Come on Beth, you can do better than that.
Black Panthers? Sorry I didn’t go back 50 years when I made my reply. Come on people. I come from conservative circles and I move in liberal circles. No one talks about Mao or Stalin with anything but contempt. But if it’s easier for all of the commenters here to think that way (I’m not intending to single Steve out) then there is nothing I could say that would convince you otherwise.
Check out Victor Davis Hanson’s “Glorified Bastards” today at nationalreview.com
Thank you Steve. I did read that. It was an opinion piece — not an article by any “leftist” embracing Mao or Stalin. The closest you can come for support for your position in that article is the reference that Columbia invited the former Iranian President to come speak. My response to that is “so what?” College campuses are (or at least are supposed to be) bastions of free speech, even if we don’t like the speaker. Hearing or inviting someone to talk does not mean that we embrace the message.
Michael Moore, for one.
I spent some time trying to find a Moore quote re Mao or Stalin. I couldn’t find one.
Why do I always think of “A Whiter Shade of Pale” whenever I hear or read about Boko Haram?
and I thought I was the only one!
I just now got that connection (forehead slap). Great song! But I hate thinking that from now on, every time I see “Boko Haram,” I’ll think of it.
I have lost all trust in our media sources — all of them. I read headlines and gather what details I can from diverse sources so that maybe, MAYBE, I might get a balanced story that contains some objectivity. To quote Paul Simon: “I get the news I need from the weather report / I can gather all the news I need from the weather report…”
The Only Living Boy In New York. Such a great writer/musician.
Is it that they are afraid or that they agree with the principle? Radical Muslims are not all that unlike radical leftists when it comes to the way they react to infidels.
I think it’s a combination of that, what Michael R said, and feeding a crocodile hoping it will eat them last.
If I didn’t have a family, I would start publishing cartoons like this, with my rural address printed at the bottom.
When the FBI ran it’s warning to all veterans to not post personal information on Facebook for fear of localized terror attacks, several of my veteran buddies scoffed and posted their exact addresses with invitations to extremists.
Those same buddies have now been changing their social media images to cartoons of Mohammad in, ahem, sexually compromising positions (of the nature condemned by Islam).
That…is awesome! Unfortunately, these cowards like soft targets, so it might be a while, if ever, before they get an opportunity to drain the swamp a bit.
I don’t know why anyone is surprised at the visual silence. The media take their lead from The Leader. If the United States had had a stand-up presence in the front line of the Paris march, arm-in-arm with his fellows, all the major journalists would have fallen in behind. Yes, it’s really that simple.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The New York Slimes has been left agenda-driven ever since “Pinch” Sulzberger was asked who he wanted shot in a confrontation between an American and Vietnamese soldier and said “I would want to see the American get shot. It’s the other guy’s country,” and later pronounced it one of the stupidest questions he had ever been asked.
The paper has never endorsed anything other than a Democrat for high office and never failed to come down on the liberal side of Every. Single. Question.
This is the paper that published classified information during the War on Terror and first ran a column by Maureen Dowd stating that the unhinged Cindy Sheehan had “absolute moral authority” because her son was killed in Iraq.
The fact that they sometimes dress up the liberalism with good grammar and prose doesn’t make it any less unbalanced or the ideas any worse. The editorial board of that paper probably doesn’t do much more than ask what the liberal view is on whatever and then go with that. The last time they had an original idea they left it swirling in the bowl. Of course they aren’t publishing these cartoons. Thankfully, in this age of social media and quick internet access, as Jack pointed out at the time of the Boston bombing, a few faux intellectuals in a boardroom no longer get to decide what the public sees. They probably know it, and that’s why they stopped trying to even look objective.