That would be Ross Douthat of the New York Times, the center-right Op-Ed columnist who looks like Attila the Hun next to his allegedly conservative stablemate, the pathetic accommodationist, David Brooks. Writing about the most recent episode of South Park, which sought to elide post-9/11 proscriptions against joking about Islam by not depicting Mohammed, he writes:
These gimmicks then prompted a writer for the New York-based Web site revolutionmuslim.com to predict that Parker and Stone would end up like Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker murdered in 2004 for his scathing critiques of Islam. The writer, an American convert to Islam named Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, didn’t technically threaten to kill them himself. His post, and the accompanying photo of van Gogh’s corpse, was just “a warning … of what will likely happen to them.”
This passive-aggressive death threat provoked a swift response from Comedy Central. In last week’s follow-up episode, the prophet’s non-appearance appearances were censored, and every single reference to Muhammad was bleeped out. The historical record was quickly scrubbed as well: The original “Super Best Friends” episode is no longer available on the Internet.
Sgt. York
Well, that’s America in 2010 — almost a full decade after we were attacked, we cower in fear of the people who attacked us; Sgt. York and Audie Murphy would be so proud. Why, it would be as if, after the attack on Pearl Habor in 1941, the country suddenly banned all depictions of the Japanese Emperor Hirohito, ceded Hawaii to the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and went on a prolonged sushi orgy.
Audie Murphy
Douthat continues:
In a way, the muzzling of “South Park” is no more disquieting than any other example of Western institutions’ cowering before the threat of Islamist violence. It’s no worse than the German opera house that temporarily suspended performances of Mozart’s opera “Idomeneo” because it included a scene featuring Muhammad’s severed head. Or Random House’s decision to cancel the publication of a novel about the prophet’s third wife. Or Yale University Press’s refusal to publish the controversial Danish cartoons … in a book about the Danish cartoon crisis. Or the fact that various Western journalists, intellectuals and politicians — the list includes Oriana Fallaci in Italy, Michel Houellebecq in France, Mark Steyn in Canada and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands — have been hauled before courts and “human rights” tribunals, in supposedly liberal societies, for daring to give offense to Islam.
But there’s still a sense in which the “South Park” case is particularly illuminating. Not because it tells us anything new about the lines that writers and entertainers suddenly aren’t allowed to cross. But because it’s a reminder that Islam is just about the only place where we draw any lines at all.
It’s easy to be “brave” when there are no consequences. But let some geek in a Virginia basement post a “veiled” threat on an obscure website and an entire counter-culture chucks its principles and heads for the nearest falafel stand to display its “sensitivity.”
This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that “bravely” trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force.
Happily, today’s would-be totalitarians are probably too marginal to take full advantage. This isn’t Weimar Germany, and Islam’s radical fringe is still a fringe, rather than an existential enemy.
For that, we should be grateful. Because if a violent fringe is capable of inspiring so much cowardice and self-censorship, it suggests that there’s enough rot in our institutions that a stronger foe might be able to bring them crashing down.
Meanwhile, what did Douthat’s colleague, the non best-selling author and failed showbiz wannabe, write about? Surely the former drama critic got down off his bash-the-right hobbyhorse to address an issue of vital cultural significance?
If Frank Rich doesn’t want to chime in, then feel free to add your thoughts on free speech here.