The New York Times will, in the name of freedom of the press, publish classified information designed to protect U.S. citizens from al Qaeda but will not publish the Islamic cartoons. Why? Because there will be no real reprisals against them from the Bush administration whereas Muslim militants will threaten them. Yes, today's liberals are cowards - they are afraid of the enemy.
It is so easy to criticize America - as do Al Gore, John Kerry, Clinton and Carter - for nothing will happen to America's critics. They will be hailed as "courageous" among their peers. It takes courage to take on today's Islam that silences its critics by letting its critics know that while walking down 5th Avenue or West 43rd their throat could be slashed, as was done to Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam.
I guess it is easier to criticize your country and jeopardize its safety than to criticize Islamic barbarism since critics of today's Islam are called racists and Islamophobes, whereas liberals engaged in weakening American resolve and our very safety are labeled "civil liberties and human rights" activists. And, of course, criticizing serious Christian leaders has become an article of faith among the cultural liberal icons. No reprisals there.
These men live and die by political correctness. They are not men of principle, but social wimps. They are not leaders, but cowards - craven. The liberal society in which these men and editors live has become perverted - a reflection of inverted attitudes, a value system upside down.
They are not cast in the mold of previous tough Americans. Nor are they like their forbearers of the Democrat party who had guts when it came to foreign contests. They are, really, European in outlook and action. Like their counterparts on the European continent, they are weak.
Their constant reference to "understanding" and being "nuanced" is a camouflage of their deep down fear. It is capitulation, in stages.
There is, of course, that other fear. The fear of being called racist, anti-Muslim. Evidently, most liberal spokesmen can't stand up to it. It silences politically correct leaders from denouncing brutal acts that if coming from other quarters would be roundly denounced.
So as to cover their fear, leaders are supplying "rationales" for these monstrous acts. Their silence, however, hides nothing, rather it leads to acceptance and, worse, justification of Moslem primitivism and horrors by - us.
None of the major liberal newspapers had the guts to do the graphics - the cartoons - of the story of the year. Nor will they show the American people the visual brutality that is today's daily modus operandi in the Arab/Islamic world. They are in a Daniel Ellsberg time-warp where if you publicize classified national security documents, you become a hero to the forever teenagers and college student mindset that occupies them.
Their world is so protected and insulated from reality, their access to every immediate comfort and gratification so commonplace, that life is a game. They can indulge in non serious, childish political polemics and slogans because they've never been mugged by reality.
"Look at me, I took on the government of the United States! Wow, look at me, I took on those WASPy Republicans." Yes, you did. And by so doing have given Al Qaeda the secrets to our telephone surveillance defense systems. The "editors of courage" over at The New York Times have provided the enemy with the tools to defeat us. Except that in their twisted self-indulgent minds, the enemy is not really an enemy, simply those in need of more "understanding" and less "American imperialism."
Though on the Danish cartoon issue they surrendered the precept of freedom of speech, they will attempt to show their "concern" regarding "freedoms and rights" by raising the bar as to what is acceptable and "allowable" for the U.S. to do in defending herself. Yes, listening to Al Qaeda conversations with its operatives here is, for them, a violation of what? - freedom of speech, freedom from search.
To the extent world liberals curtail our freedom to speak out against radical Islam or publish items critical of Moslem intolerance will they, inversely, demand from our government stricter rules as to what is permissible in fighting our war on terror.
To the extent that liberals demand more tolerance from us toward our enemies will they demand less tolerance from our enemies toward our ways and values.
Forty years of liberal thinking has come home to roost. Earlier, with its brazenness and promiscuity, it polluted our souls; now it intends to invite our decline and physical death. It is a disease that must be purged.
Below are the cartoons published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten. Click each image to enlarge.
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