One of the great imponderables of our time is how, for example, a revered institution in the heart of Western (classically) liberal civilization like the New York Times manages to editorialize on the murder, firebombing and threatened assassination attending Pope Benedict's remarks about Islam by tut-tutting Benedict for "insult[ing] Muslims" and calling for him to offer a "deep and persuasive apology." Is it and similar reactions from institutions and pundits basking in the blessings of the free world some sort of reflexive communion with the thugs who are shooting nuns, and urging the Pope's death? It's been suggested, but not seriously.
Is it fear? Fear, not respect for religious sensibilities, surely drove most of the self-censorship in the West of the Danish Mohammed cartoons that got so many people killed. "Courage" in the news business today is demonstrated mostly by criticizing the Republican President, having taken care beforehand to lead people to believe that doing so is somehow dangerous. You picture fifth graders at recess: "The sand is hot lava! Now watch!" They step on the sand and imagine how brave they are, possibly accompanied by a dramatic "aarrrgghh!" that everyone playing along gasps at.
I do think the New York Times and its fellow travelers lack the courage to stand up to militant Islam, fearing not necessarily retribution in this case but a chink in their PC armor. But I don't think fear explains everything. Here are some theories.
The West's veneration of victimhood to the point where the objective quality of a wrong or insult doesn't matter, all that matters is how the wronged or insult-ee took it. This is an attractive explanation on the surface: This Colorform-y nonsense doesn't make the Vatican seethe with rage, so it's no big deal. If on the other hand something hurts you enough that you run out and shoot an elderly nun dead in the back, someone must owe you a big apology.
This doesn't tell the whole story either. Christians, after all, are savagely mocked on blogs, on TV, in movies, and yes, in newspapers every day, without a peep from the Times, despite that many take offense (though few, if any, set fire to things over it). While the Times and its ilk won't consider how, objectively speaking, levelheaded you would have to be to take offense at something, it has thanks to 40 years of victim veneration already arranged the world into victims and oppressors. Islam is a victim. The Catholic Church, needless to say, is an oppressor. If Muslims, who are victims, are offended at some grevious sin committed by the Vatican, which is an oppressor, you trot out the editorial demanding healing dialogue.
The Catholic Church is the Times' enemy on the really important stuff. Militant Islamic fanatics, blah blah blah. We are in Rome talking about the number one most illiberal institution anyone willing to ignore gays being summarily beheaded, women treated as subhuman and conscience and ideas being brutally erased can stand.
The Vatican criticized Israel for attacking Hezbollah, and supported the non-publication of the Mohammed cartoons, but it also stubbornly refuses to come to its senses on abortion and gay marriage, won't let Africans use condoms, urges objectively moral behavior and sorts people into those who get an eternal reward and those who don't. If it had a bumbling crony heading up its emergency management arm and Satan as its attorney general, it would be nearly as bad as the Bush White House. As quickly as the Times is likely to take the side of insulted Muslims, the offense being committed by the Church calls for an editorial.
It matters whose idea things are. President Clinton suggests midnight basketball to keep kids out of trouble as part of a crime bill, and that's swell. President Bush suggests baseball clean up steroids so as to keep kids out of the hospital, and doesn't he have anything more important to worry about?
An election season isn't the best time for Democratic mouthpieces to be applauding confronting Islam. To the extent the national Democratic party has a midterm election strategy, it involves casting the warmongering foreign policy of Bush and the Republicans as hamfisted, inartful and insufficiently nuanced. Standing up for Benedict, or even remaining silent, doesn't move the chains.
If as you can imagine the Republican nominee for President in 2008 runs on a pro-global war on terror platform while his opponent promises more sophistication, crimefighting and root cause analysis, you will see this more often. Failure to cow to the possibility of vandalism, murder and mayhem will be cast as backward. Understanding, healing and dialogue will be urged as the more sophistcated, effective way to deal with the extremists who bastardize Islam to justify terror.
I reject the suggestion, by the way, that the Times simply considered the issue objectively and concluded, contrary to what you would think would be a deeply felt reverence for the free exchange of ideas: "The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly." The world reads carefully the pages of the New York Times, after all, and I don't think it can be successfully argued that exposing matters of national security isn't dangerous whether done deliberately or carelessly, but it doesn't seem to counsel restraint in that situation.
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