I wrote about the Paris attack in Politico today:
The sad fact is that physical intimidation works. Some press outlets pixilated or cropped out the covers of Charlie Hebdo in their coverage of the Paris attacks, as if they were the works of obscenity that the attackers consider them.
One line of argument is, in effect, that Charlie Hebdo had it coming. A writer for the Financial Times scored the publication in the wake of the attacks for lacking “common sense.” Back in 2012, then-White House spokesman Jay Carney questioned the magazine’s “judgment” for publishing cartoons mocking Muhammad, and rued its “potential to be inflammatory.”
But we don’t usually look to satirical magazines for “judgment.” Charlie Hebdo isn’t Le Point; the Onion isn’t Time. Besides, no one ever has to question anyone’s death-defying lack of “common sense” for mocking Christians. It isn’t dangerously “inflammatory,” for instance, to make fun of the Catholic Church. Unless you fear a sharply worded news release from the Catholic League.