Ted Rall gets it exactly right on anti-Muslim cartoons

Speaking — as he points out — as the nation’s only syndicated cartoonist AND syndicated columnist, his comments bear weight. The real danger here, he says, is America’s “nanny press”.

I can't decide who's a bigger threat: the deluded Islamists who hope to impose Sharia law on Western democracies, or the right-wing clash-of-civilization crusaders waving the banner of “free speech” — the same folks who call for the censorship and even murder of anti-Bush cartoonists here--as an excuse to join the post-9/11 Muslims-suck media pile-on. Most reasonable people reject both--but neither is as dangerous to liberty as America's self-censoring newspaper editors and broadcast producers.

As for me, I e-mailed The Dallas Morning News’ Editorial Page Editor Keven Ann Willey and Vice President for News Management George Rodigue last Thursday to show at least one of the cartoons. In the Sunday op-ed section, the Snooze showed a bowdlerized version of one of the less-offensive cartoons.

I e-mailed Willey a second time, saying she got partial credit at best.

And, and, and — did her staff have permission to bowdlerize the cartoon as they did? (I just e-mailed Willey and Rodrigue again, asking that very question. We’ll see if we get a response.)