Monday, September 29, 2008
The Sacred and the Profane
Deborah Howell on the controversial Oliphant cartoon:
A few observations.
First of all, I can't help but be pleased with Howell. Like Kathleen Parker and Ruth Marcus, she has shown willingness to advocating views that don't make her popular with her political fellow travelers. I find myself agreeing with her from time to time, and in today's overly politicized environment, that is a welcome development.
Secondly, it's interesting to compare this with the Tom Toles controversy a while back:
The Toles cartoon controversy was interesting because it resulted in accusations of censorship in response to an extremely mild letter to the editor - this after liberal blogs deliberately attempted to intimidate and harass members of the press into suppressing non-approved versions of "the truth". One can't help but note the similarities to the Obama Truth Squad, which (no doubt from the loftiest of motives) deployed Missouri law enforcement officers to make sure voters only hear the Obama campaign's officially sanctioned version of "the truth".
Barack Obama might do well to listen to the Canadians (h/tip Glenn S.) on the question of free speech:
Continue reading....
Note: because this is a lengthy post and because it contains a word which may offend some people (and which I did not feel comfortable using without permission on Tigerhawk's site, though I do so deliberately in the context of a post on political correctness and the bounds of acceptable discourse) I have chosen to leave the second half of this post over at my site. I don't feel at all uncomfortable about it given the subject. Please consider yourselves forewarned, however :p
- Cassandra
... a Pat Oliphant cartoon posted on washingtonpost.com Sept. 9 is still generating angry e-mails. The cartoon showed Sarah Palin speaking in tongues, John McCain saying she has a "direct line" to God and God saying that he couldn't understand her "dam' right wing . . . gibberish."
More than 750 readers from around the country -- more than I heard from about the financial crisis -- told me they were mightily offended. Many were Pentecostals, whose worship can include speaking in tongues; complaints also came from mainline Christians and from Charles Martin, a Buddhist in Boulder, Colo., who said "it offends me."
McCain and Palin are certainly fair game, but most of those offended by the cartoon felt it mocked all Pentecostals. Most cartoonists don't go out of their way to lambaste religion. But the pope is a frequent editorial cartoon character, as are God and St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.
Most complainers thought that the Oliphant cartoon appeared in print. It didn't. I showed it to several Post editors. While it was clever in some ways, most editors -- including me -- would not have run it. The Post has a policy against defaming or perpetuating racial, religious or ethnic stereotypes. That was why The Post did not run the Danish cartoons about the prophet Muhammad.
Oliphant wasn't surprised that it didn't run in print. "Many publications are too timid" to run some of his work, he said, but "the Web is giving us more of a solid venue."
A few observations.
First of all, I can't help but be pleased with Howell. Like Kathleen Parker and Ruth Marcus, she has shown willingness to advocating views that don't make her popular with her political fellow travelers. I find myself agreeing with her from time to time, and in today's overly politicized environment, that is a welcome development.
Secondly, it's interesting to compare this with the Tom Toles controversy a while back:
It is instructive to note how those who are quick to be offended by viewpoints they disagree with can't wait to condemn their opponents for expressing the same sense of outrage via far less intrusive and extreme means. Witness today's letter in the Washington Post, in which the Joint Chiefs of Staff took the rare step of expressing their "disappointment" at a recent Tom Toles cartoon. Readers of the lefty AmericaBlog were outraged that America's military leaders should presume to exercise the First Amendment freedoms they have bought and paid for in their own blood. You see, the tolerant Left supports the troops... so long as can be conveniently silenced.
AmericaBlog tells us that the Pentagon is "trying to censor" a top political cartoonist:
The Joint Chiefs of Staff just sent a menacing letter to the Washington Post over a cartoon.
Here are the "menacing" words the Joint Chiefs used to "try to censor" the media:
We were extremely disappointed to see the Jan. 29 editorial cartoon by Tom Toles.
You all know what happens when military folks are "disappointed", don't you? They whip out their phone books and beat up people like Joel Stein. Of course this hasn't actually happened, but that doesn't stop people like Stein from implying that it will.
The Toles cartoon controversy was interesting because it resulted in accusations of censorship in response to an extremely mild letter to the editor - this after liberal blogs deliberately attempted to intimidate and harass members of the press into suppressing non-approved versions of "the truth". One can't help but note the similarities to the Obama Truth Squad, which (no doubt from the loftiest of motives) deployed Missouri law enforcement officers to make sure voters only hear the Obama campaign's officially sanctioned version of "the truth".
Barack Obama might do well to listen to the Canadians (h/tip Glenn S.) on the question of free speech:
Continue reading....
Note: because this is a lengthy post and because it contains a word which may offend some people (and which I did not feel comfortable using without permission on Tigerhawk's site, though I do so deliberately in the context of a post on political correctness and the bounds of acceptable discourse) I have chosen to leave the second half of this post over at my site. I don't feel at all uncomfortable about it given the subject. Please consider yourselves forewarned, however :p
- Cassandra
1 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Oct 01, 11:53:00 AM:
Pat Oliphant is like any other liberal infernal scibblers their all secular,atheists scumballs LOWER THEN A SNAKE IN A WAGON RUT
