Cartoon Controversy: A slap & a spitball

We appreciated President Bush's response to the recent upswing of noose displays. He said, "Displaying one is not a harmless prank." Hanging a noose isn't about exercising First Amendment rights. It's vile and controversial and, as Bush rightly said, "is not a symbol of prairie justice." We felt similarly about the Muhammad cartoon several newspapers reprinted this week.

When Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper first printed the insulting cartoon in 2005, Muslims around the world were offended, and in several cities, their protests turned violent. Although mortified at the content of the cartoon, the Muslim community at large condemned the violence, and newspapers reprinted the cartoon this week after extremists' plot to kill the artist was revealed. In 2006, the Jyllands-Posten's editor wrote an editorial for The Washington Post, saying that the cartoon was run "in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam."

But the paper's editors must've known that running the cartoon as a means of starting a debate is like starting a negotiation with a slap and spitball to the face. The move was doomed, perhaps engineered, to provoke the violent Muslim extremists at a time when Islam, in general, is viewed by the Danish People's Party as the "cancer of Danish society." The same newspaper had previously refused to run cartoons mocking Jesus. The rejection letter sent to the artist by an editor read, "They will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them."

Newspapers reprinting the Mohammad cartoon in solidarity with the Jyllands-Posten ought to carefully weigh the reasons for doing so -- is it done in the spirit of defending our freedom of expression, or senseless provocation?