Will The Post Republish The Danish Cartoons?

A lot of people have written The Washington Post in the last couple days to protest this Tom Toles cartoon, which ran Sunday. Most notable was a letter (Download file) sent by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, published as a letter to the editor in today's WaPo.

Using the likeness of a service member who has lost his arms and legs in war as the central theme of a cartoon was beyond tasteless. Editorial cartoons are often designed to exaggerate issues, and The Post is obviously free to address any topic, including the state of readiness of the armed forces. However, The Post and Mr. Toles have done a disservice to readers and to The Post's reputation by using such a callous depiction of those who volunteered to defend this nation and, as a result, suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds.

As Michelle Malkin has noted, this is how civilized societies criticize speech they deem offensive. They don't stage armed building raids and threaten suicide attacks, as Islamic radicals have done throughout Europe in response to cartoons that appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. These antics, including the boycott of Danish goods by some Muslim nations, have resulted in a push by bloggers and some journalists not only to "buy Danish" but also to encourage American newspapers to republish the Danish cartoons in the name of free speech.

Political cartoons are meant to be provocative, and while I think the Toles cartoon is distasteful and disrespectful to our troops and their families, there's a part of me that's glad the Post decided to run it. Talk about a benchmark for determining whether the newspaper is truly committed to free speech or merely shilling for the anti-war movement.

Editorial page editor Fred Hiatt said today in response to Toles's cartoon that he doesn't "censor Tom." Fair enough. After all, freely publishing editorial comments and cartoons doesn't necessarily correlate to publisher endorsement of such material. If Hiatt is to be taken at his word, he should immediately republish - in the name of press freedom - the Danish cartoons in The Washington Post to demonstrate solidarity with Denmark's determination to preserve free speech and expression.

American society will prevail despite the occasional appearance of tactless editorial cartoons in the nation's dailies. What's ironic about the Danish cartoons is that they've exposed the very behavior they were meant to imply. Alas, the Post's publication of the Toles cartoon will most likely simply prove to display the type of behavior we've already come to expect from most of the mainstream press.