In Fall 2005, several Danish newspaper cartoonists simultaneously created and had published cartoons showing images of the "prophet" Muhammad. As a result, the cartoonists were threatened; several Muslim clerics pronounced fatwas condemning the cartoonists to death. One of the cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, produced this, which was printed by his newspaper:




Fast forward two years to February, 2008. The Danish authorities recently arrested three men who were attempting to carry out one of the fatwas against Mr. Westergaard. Click the link and head on over to the Captain's Quarters blog (run by Mr. Ed Morrissey) to read more.

This picture is being posted in solidarity with Captain's Quarters.

I previously published on this topic on 5 February, 2006

Obama's "former" pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, has been on a roll recently. But Wright's recent appearance before the National Press Club in Washington D.C. created a product which Obama has no choice but to address:

To say ?I am a Christian? is not enough. Why? Because the Christianity of the slaveholder is not the Christianity of the slave. The God to whom the slaveholders pray as they ride on the decks of the slave ship is not the God to whom the enslaved are praying as they ride beneath the decks on that slave ship.

Translation: Blacks and whites pray to a different God.

As I said on the Bill Moyers? show, one of our news channels keeps playing a news clip from 20 years ago when Louis said 20 years ago that Zionism, not Judaism, was a gutter religion.

And he was talking about the same thing United Nations resolutions say, the same thing now that President Carter is being vilified for, and Bishop Tutu is being vilified for. And everybody wants to paint me as if I?m anti-Semitic because of what Louis Farrakhan said 20 years ago.

Translation: I am anti-Semitic. My support for Louis Farrakhan shows that.

And if you saw the Bill Moyers show, I was talking about ? although it got edited out ? you know, that?s biblical. God doesn?t bless everything. God condemns something ? and d-e-m-n, ?demn,? is where we get the word ?damn.? God damns some practices.

Translation: Judge, for ye shall not be judged.

Britain has apologized to Africans, but this country?s leaders have refused to apologize. So until that apology comes, I?m not going to keep stepping on your foot and asking you, ?Does this hurt? Do you forgive me for stepping on your foot?? if I?m still stepping on your foot.

Translation: Abraham Lincoln is a figment of the imagination.

Father Flagger (sic), by the way, he might be one of the one ?

Translation: I've found a pro-abortion, racist Catholic priest to flack for me.

Oh boy. Hasn't Wright even considered the racist abortion agenda of Planned Parenthood as he marches in solidarity with the Rev. Sharpton and Father Michael Pfleger, the pro-abortion priest?

Don?t make me come across this room. I had to come across the room, because they start ? understand, when you?re talking about my mama, once again, and talking about my faith tradition, once again, how long do you let somebody talk about your faith tradition before you speak up and say something in defense of ? this is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright.

Once again, let me say it again. This is an attack on the black church. And I cannot as a minister of the gospel allow the significant part of our history ? most African-Americans and most European-Americans, most Hispanic-Americans, half the names I called in my presentation they?ve never heard of, because they don?t know anything at all about our tradition.

Translation: Every black church is as racist as mine. And yes, you are attacking me and I don't like it. That's why I'm afraid of you, and why I have all these Nation of Islam guards standing around.

Several black pastors have already disowned Wright's viewpoints. If his viewpoints are stock within the black church (whatever that is), that church is in a sorry state.

All of that Obama has heard shouted from the pulpit before. The thing that got him was this:

He didn?t distance himself. He had to distance himself, because he?s a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was anti-American. He said I didn?t offer any words of hope. How would he know? He never heard the rest of the sermon. You never heard it.

I offered words of hope. I offered reconciliation. I offered restoration in that sermon, but nobody heard the sermon. They just heard this little sound bite of a sermon.

That is an attack on Obama's integrity. In Wright's mind, Obama is only a politician, which is why Obama is not defending Wright's viewpoints, which Obama understands and believes, because, as a politician, Obama needs racist votes to be elected. Obama has to respond. Sadly, any response by Obama will be about twenty years too late; the scales should have fallen from his eyes years ago.

Note: Here's the prescient scoop from the LA TImes' Jonah Goldberg:

I, for one, have no interest in being united with Wright or anyone who insists that America is an evil, racist, damnable nation bent on murdering black people -- and I suspect neither will many general election voters.

Over the past few days we got a good perspective on the Obama Administration's ability to conduct diplomacy. The state visit of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown led the way with an exchange of gifts:

The Prime Minister gave Mr Obama an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet...Mr Brown also handed over a framed commission for HMS Resolute and a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.

In addition, Mr Brown and his wife showered gifts on the Obama children giving Sasha and Malia an outfit each from Topshop and six children's books by British authors which are shortly to be published in America.

In return, the Browns got:

Barack Obama, the leader of the world's richest country, gave the Prime Minister a box set of 25 classic American films - a gift about as exciting as a pair of socks.

...the Obamas gave the Browns two models of the presidential helicopter, Marine One, to take home to sons Fraser and John.

Perhaps it was the biography of Churchill which seemingly annoyed President Barack, because he had famously returned a bust of Churchill which had occupied a prized place in the Oval Office after Tony Blair loaned it to George Bush after the 9/11 attacks (an oblique reference to the solidarity the United States has shown Great Britain during the Blitz).

Now we have an alternative explaination. Never ascribe to malice that which can be ascribed to incompetance (or its handmaiden "tiredness"). According to telegraph.co.uk:

But Washington figures with access to Mr Obama's inner circle explained the slight by saying that those high up in the administration have had little time to deal with international matters, let alone the diplomatic niceties of the special relationship.

Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president's surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama's inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to "even fake an interest in foreign policy".

A British official conceded that the furore surrounding the apparent snub to Mr Brown had come as a shock to the White House. "I think it's right to say that their focus is elsewhere, on domestic affairs. A number of our US interlocutors said they couldn't quite understand the British concerns and didn't get what that was all about."

The American source said: "Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.

"That was the gamble these guys made at the front end of this presidency and I think they're finding it a hard thing to do everything."

British diplomats insist the visit was a success, with officials getting the chance to develop closer links with Mr Obama's aides. They point out that the president has agreed to meet the prime minister for further one-to-one talks in London later this month, ahead of the G20 summit on April 2.

But they concede that the mood music of the event was at times strained. Mr Brown handed over carefully selected gifts, including a pen holder made from the wood of a warship that helped stamp out the slave trade - a sister ship of the vessel from which timbers were taken to build Mr Obama's Oval Office desk. Mr Obama's gift in return, a collection of Hollywood film DVDs that could have been bought from any high street store, looked like the kind of thing the White House might hand out to the visiting head of a minor African state.

So, the excuse is that the President has only one horse, and that horse is tired.

And the dog ate my homework.