"Sanctimonious stateless moral rectitude"

Brian Tiemann brings up a good point...

...I’d love to hear the Leunig/Rall/Fisk/Moore/etc reasoning that exonerates Hamas and its obviously popularly supported boycott versus the poor guy at the writing desk....

....Whether the newspapers reprinting the cartoons represent widespread popular opinion or not, they're consciously turning this issue into a bigger—much bigger—conflagration, one in which the long-anticipated clash between the diametrically opposite concepts of freedom of speech and religious law will finally occur in a forum that Westerners can't ignore: our own newspapers.

Eventually it'll show up on the evening news. The mainstream media won't be able to ignore the matter any longer, or refrain from publishing the cartoons without asking themselves uncomfortable questions about whether they're rank hypocrites of the highest order, affecting a sanctimonious stateless moral rectitude when it comes to politics and war, but meekly hiding when it comes to a story that touches on sensitive religious matters.

Sooner or later, our media decisionmakers will realize that allowing themselves to be intimidated by Islamic fundamentalism, and allowing themselves to be constrained by laws and guidelines that forbid ridicule on religious grounds, would forbid the ridicule of Christianity—one of our most cherished modern pastimes....

"Cherished modern pastime--ridiculing Christianity". Ain't that the truth. Lefties may be heading into a ugly bind. On the one hand they always support appeasement in the War and are apologists for every Muslim atrocity --not because they give a damn about Muslims, but because they hate the idea of the West fighting for its culture and values. On the other hand, there are few things they cherish more than the right of smutty little minds to heap ridicule on religion, morals or traditional values.

The two haven't clashed before now, because the cartoonists have, probably unconsciously, been on board with the program. They have continued, mostly by inertia, heaping ridicule on Christians, patriots, Republicans, etc, even when plump non-Christian targets for lampoons were walking right by. But all humor is conservative, and anyone trying to be funny will be tugged by an invisible tide away from leftist pomposity. We've already seen this is the way South Park or Team America mock "political correctness" and Hollywood lefties. And in the way overtly left-wing cartoonists are not very funny.