ANDREW SULLIVAN WRITES on Cartoon Cowardice:

The fundamental job of journalists is to give you as much information as possible to make sense of the world around you. And in this story, where the entire controversy revolves around drawings, the press is suddenly coy. You can see Saddam Hussein in his underwear and members of the royal family in compromising positions. You can see Andres Serrano’s famously blasphemous photograph of a crucifix in urine, called Piss Christ. But a political cartoon that deals with Islam? Not our job, guv. Move right along. Nothing to see here.

When people riot over cartoons as tame as these, you’d think it would be news.

UPDATE: Dave Schuler has more thoughts on the press’s timidity. As I’ve said, when you reward violence and efforts at violent intimidation, you’ll get more of them.

I also think that if the press is this scared of Islamic extremists, claims that Bush is manufacturing an artificial climate of fear regarding Islamic extremism ring rather hollow.