“Michael Steele: If Charlie Hebdo were published in the U.S., evangelicals would ‘raise up mightily,'” Allahpundit writes at Hot Air of the former Republican National Committee chairman’s visit to NBC’s Meet the Press yesterday:
Via NRO, I’ve watched this three times and still don’t see the point of the question or the answer. It seems to be a half-baked version of a tu quoque. Sure, says Chuck Todd, we laugh at French Muslims for being angry when Mohammed is mocked, but how would America’s Christians feel if there were a U.S. version of Charlie Hebdo goofing on their idols every week? Pretty darned offended, Steele concedes. There would be protests! Okay … and?
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Guy Benson, reading a draft of this post, e-mailed with this recent clip from “Family Guy” about Peter Griffin trying to help Jesus lose his virginity. A magazine that’s a bit more crass in its mockery would be water off a duck’s back for most of them. Besides, a true American analog to Charlie Hebdo wouldn’t stop at Christians because Hebdo itself doesn’t. It would have to satirize Muslim sacred cows too, and I think Christians are more likely to cut a satirist some slack when they see that he really is an equal-opportunity offender.
Gee Michael, where have you been for the past 30 years? As I wrote in 2006 during Islam’s first round of cartoon wars, “Remember all the riots, looting and torching when Dogma and The Last Temptation of Christ played at your local multiplex? Me neither.” And the protests of religious conservatives haven’t stopped AP (until the Charlie Hebdo story broke) from selling photos of “Piss Christ” on their Website, or from the New York Times from hiring the “artist” who created it to illustrate their articles. Seinfeld co-creator Larry David would piss on Christ himself in 2009, and last time I checked, he’s also still very much alive and well. Similarly, far from even harassing the stars and director of 2005’s gay-themed Brokeback Mountain, as Mark Steyn wrote in National Review in 2006 regarding the hyper-politicized Hollywood of the Bush years, “The more artful leftie websites have taken to complaining that the religious right deliberately killed Brokeback at the box-office by declining to get mad about it.” Shortly thereafter, lefties at the L.A. Times were complaining about the lack of large-scale protests over the Da Vinci Code.
Heck, in the 21st century, conservative Catholics are so laid back, you can call them Nazis to their face on national TV and they won’t even attempt to slug you in response.
Just ask Michael Steele.
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