It's not the first time I've written about The New York Times not getting it. Sadly, this is not the first time the NYT has missed it (remember the Holocaust).
So says Andrew Sullivan:
So we now discover that the hideously offensive and blasphemous cartoons -- so blasphemous that CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post won't publish them ... were reprinted last October. In Egypt. On the front frigging page. No one rioted. No editor at Al Fager was threatened. So it's official: the Egyptian state media is less deferential to Islamists than the New York Times. So where were the riots in Cairo? This whole affair is a contrived, manufactured attempt by extremist Muslims to move the goal-posts on Western freedom. They're saying: we determine what you can and cannot print; and there's a difference between what Muslims can print and what infidels can print. And, so far, much of the West has gone along. In this, well-meaning American editors have been played for fools and cowards. Maybe if they'd covered the murders of von Gogh and Fortuyn more aggressively they'd have a better idea of what's going on; and stared down this intimidation. The whole business reminds me of the NYT's coverage of the Nazis in the 1930s. They didn't get the threat then. They don't get it now.
I've become more and more convinced of the importance of this issue. After some thought, I don't feel, like Sullivan, that the NYT or the Post should print these cartoons. It would only inflame the situation and accomplish little.
But it does matter that extremist Muslims have been able to whip up a huge frenzy over how the Danes -- I repeat, the Danes -- have allegedly insulted an entire religion and now this group, whoever they may be, are attempting to make a free democratic state bow to their wishes.