Ed Koch takes on the mainstream press for cowardice


"The free press has surrendered to Islamic fanatics"
I may disagree with Ed Koch most of the time, but I think this shows character.

If there were any lingering doubt that large numbers of fanatical Islamic adherents want to kill us or bring the democracies of the world to their knees, this past week should have settled the issue.

Last September, a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published 12 cartoons or caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad -- the one receiving most publicity depicting the Prophet with his head and turban looking like a bomb fused to go off. Four months later, riots, looting and killings by Muslim mobs are being organized around the world.

According to The New York Times, the cartoons have been republished in “Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Hungary, as well as in Jordan.” The U.S. State Department, according to The Times, “defended the right of the Danish and French newspapers to publish the cartoons.”

According to The Times, “Major American newspapers, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, did not publish the caricatures. Representatives said the story could be told effectively without publishing images that many would find offensive.” Surely, that excuse is inadequate in the U.S. with a population of 300 million, more than 75 percent Christian and subjected to seeing, as columnist Charles Krauthammer pointed out in his brilliant column of February 10, 2006, “publish[ed] pictures of the Virgin Mary covered with elephant dung and celebrat[ion of] the “Piss Christ” (a crucifix sitting in a jar of urine) as art deserving public subsidy, but [these newspapers] are seized with a sudden religious sensitivity when the subject is Muhammad.”

So why the reluctance to report the real story? Did these stalwarts who believe they are protecting the civil rights of the American public when they write editorial after editorial denouncing the Patriot Act and the spying activities of the National Security Agency without court warrants, both of which the President of the United States and leading members of Congress have told us time and again are necessary -- with the President insisting he is using the power provided in both the Constitution, law and court decisions in time of war -- to defend the U.S. from terrorist attack?

It takes a lot for a prominent Democrat to go against the leadership of his own party these days. Mr. Koch just went up about a few notches in my estimation.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Wed - February 15, 2006 at 04:47 AM  Tag


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