Two Thoughts

Newsweek magazine printed an article that mentions the alleged desecration of the Koran. 17 people die in ensuing riots. So why is the focus on the White House?

I believe that Newsweek should take steps to make sure that just because something can be written, it doesn't mean it should be.

I'm not suggesting censorship. I'm just asking for more responsible journalism.

Furthermore, this request is equally aimed at ABC's Terry Moran and others who decided that the real villain was the Bush White House for recommending that Newsweek be more responsible.

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I hate to say this, but I think the President really dropped the ball on this one. Since his election in 2000, I have only been at odds with three policies he has championed. The first was his refusing to publicly acknowledge the Saudi's complicity in the spreading of Islamifacism. The second was his plan to open more doors for illegal immigrants.

The third is the way he has dealt with the Newsweek story. This would have been a good time to berate the Arabs for inciting there own people to riot. Instead, the President - once again - hid beneath the veil of appeasement.

Certainly, Newsweek should not have published the story. But as Jeff Jacoby wrote:

No one recalled, for example, that American Catholics lashed out in violent rampages in 1989, after photographer Andres Serrano's ''Piss Christ" - a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine - was included in an exhibition subsidized by the National Endowment for the Arts. Or that they rioted in 1992 when singer Sinead O'Connor, appearing on ''Saturday Night Live," ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II.

There was no reminder that Jewish communities erupted in lethal violence in 2000, after Arabs demolished Joseph's Tomb, torching the ancient shrine and murdering a young rabbi who tried to save a Torah. And nobody noted that Buddhists went on a killing spree in 2001 in response to the destruction of two priceless, 1,500-year-old statues of Buddha by the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Of course, there was a good reason all these bloody protests went unremunerated in the coverage of the Newsweek affair: They never occurred.

Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don't lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don't call for holy war and riot in the streets. It would be unthinkable for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain. But when Reuters reported what Mohammad Hanif, the imam of a Muslim seminary in Pakistan, said about the alleged Koran-flushers - "They should be hung. They should be killed in public so that no one can dare to insult Islam and its sacred symbols" - was any reader surprised?

There are many in the Muslims who would prefer to live in a Democratic society. The liberation of Iraq alone stands as a testament to that fact. But this has never been a war against Islam itself. It has been a war against the Islamic fascists who cherish death over life.

The President should not be placating to these people's "sensitivities." He should realize that it only confirms their belief that we are weak willed.

The Islamofacists understand the West. It's high-time the West understood them.