Dhimmsbury's Garry Trudeau, the cartoonist who has never offended anyone, weighs in on the Muhammad cartoons and says we should never cause offense to another. From Newsbusters:
Gary Trudeau, creator of the 'Doonesbury' comic strip, says cartoonists should draw the line when it comes to offending people. In an interview published in the Santa Barbara Independent:Q. What did you make of the Danish cartoon mess? I understand that you said you would never play with the image of Allah. But did you feel you should have done so out of a sense of professional solidarity, or to make a statement about freedom of speech?
A. What exactly would that statement be? That we can say whatever we want in the West? Everyone already knows that. So then the question becomes, should we say whatever we want? That, to me, is the crux. Do you hurt people just because you can? Because you feel they shouldn’t be deeply hurt, does that mean they aren’t? Should the New York Times run vicious caricatures of blacks and Jews just to show the First Amendment in action? At some point, common sense and sensitivity have to be brought to bear.
Allahpundit at Hotair has exactly the right riposte (and his original contains many useful links as well):
Yeah, the thing is, not everyone does know that. Or else the Western Standard wouldn’t have been sued and Fallaci wouldn’t have been prosecuted and religious-hate-speech laws wouldn’t have been passed and Theo Van Gogh wouldn’t have been stabbed in the street and the Danish cartoonists wouldn’t have gone into hiding. As for the second bolded statment, lay aside his suggestion that cultural [critics] should censor themselves to suit subjective standards of offensiveness. It’s so stupid, unrealistic, and hypocritical as not to warrant further discussion. The real point, of course, is that the cartoons weren’t self-censored due to “sensitivity;” they were censored due to fear. Comedy Central admitted that flat out when they refused to let South Park show Mohammed, as did Borders when they refused to carry the issue of Free Inquiry magazine that reprinted the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. And now, in Denmark, video of the DPP kids drawing images of Mohammed has been taken offline on the same day that the foreign ministry issued a travel advisory warning Danes to stay out of the Middle East until this blows over....Exit question for Trudeau: would it make any difference to his free-speech hypothetical if blacks or Jews were threatening to kill Bill Keller if he ran vicious caricatures of them? What would “common sense” counsel in that case?
Gary Trudeau is irrevelant and still living in the hippy heyday of war is bad and intellectual pc elites are sensitive and good and know what is best for us less sophisticated commoners.
Gary Trudeau, creator of the 'Doonesbury' comic strip, says cartoonists should draw the line when it comes to offending people.
What a crock! He expects Western cartoonists to not offend (like he never would). How about holding Muslims to the same standard? There's plenty of anti-Bush, anti-Blair and anti-Israel cartoons in the Middle East- will these be withdrawn? Not likely. But then again Trudeau could care less about that because he most likely enjoys such garbage. Thanks for the preaching Gary, but I'm not buying your drivel.
Looks like "Calvin and Hobbes" for me, then...
Okay, little by little we get it. muzlims are scary. muzlims have hair-trigger and violent tempers that can go off at any minute.
The female ninjas just emphasize that these creatures are aliens. dangerous aliens.
keep it up muzlims. we're getting more and more scared of you and that's good.
now, a few more insanely homicidal attacks on innocents and we'll get even more afraid.
little by little we will see that we are being terrorized. little by little the last of the islamofascist appeasers will be silenced.
and then payback.
I guess Trudeau feels safe targeting the people he features in his work. None of them is likely to kill him. How far would he have gotten without the freedom of expression he has taken advantage of for decades? His sensitivity has the reek of fear, and he is yet another example of a cultural elitist who is a coward at heart.
Sorry. Gary Trudeau is 'irrelevant'
and he's a coward to boot.
Here’s a cartoonist who has made an entire career out of poking fun at the establishment and the political leaders of our day and for some odd reason he won’t broach the subject of Muslims and their continued rage over the Danish cartoons …why not?
Simply put: he’s as much afraid of the Muslim reactions as others are. Period. His mouth may say one thing and give excuses about sensitivity, but his heart knows better and he doesn’t want to go into hiding and fear for his life.
He’s a coward. I’m not suggesting that he go out and draw cartoons of Muhammad and stir up trouble for himself, but when posed the question as to why he won’t draw Muhammad he should’ve been straightforward and said without a doubt “I don’t want to get myself killed by angry Muslims.” I think I could respect that answer since it’s a much more plausible reason.
This, however, is a lame excuse from an artist who’s practically been left behind –the last time he’s been relevant was back in the Nixon era.
Stick to talking cigarettes, Trudeau. At least the tobacco companies won’t burn your house down and cut your head off no matter how offended they may be by you.
Check out the last name "trudeau. Sounds like a pushover, lily-livered, unsensible french-fried frog to me.
More Margaret than Pierre.
Given Doonesbury attacks on the GOP in the run up to the Iraq war, and its support for the enemy in general, Gary Trudeau is a relic as far as cartoonists go. Probably a better subject, rather than creator of cartoons.
Allahpundit has it exactly right! I stopped reading trudeau's crap a long time ago, when he seemed more driven by "bush derangement syndrome" than by the desire for intelligent and witty commentary. I stopped reading it because 1) it wasn't funny anymore and 2) it was evident that trudeau is just another irrelevant left-wing hack, no different than moyers, mahar, and others whose intelligence I used to admire, but who have sacrificed that intelligence to political expediency. His cowardice in the face of true threats to his freedom of speech is not surprising. His is the standard response of these craven hypocrits.
. So then the question becomes, should we say whatever we want? That, to me, is the crux. Do you hurt people just because you can? Because you feel they shouldn’t be deeply hurt, does that mean they aren’t
He's made his living off hurting people. I've been p*ssed about his "cartoons" plenty of times, there have been many calls for his cartoon strip to be dropped by the newspapers. I have never thought of threatening him, and I don't think the papers should drop his strip. Maybe they should be on the editorial page instead of the comic section. All that said, doesn't that make him, if not a liar, just a tad bit of a hypocrite?
That's Sixties Kids for you: all about Revolution For Revolution's Sake, and Sticking It To The Man, and saying every bad word about Western culture and every good word about non-Western culture.
Trudeau is just a cartoonist. The real problem is the multitudes of Sixties Kids in academe and in positions of decision-making or giving advice to the decision-makers.
"all about Revolution For Revolution's Sake, and Sticking It To The Man, and saying every bad word about Western culture and every good word about non-Western culture."
It's not only the Western/non-Western angle; there's also an implicit reverse racism going on here. If the vast majority of Muslims were white Westerners, Trudeau would be the first to condemn them and would have had a long-running series of comic jabs at them by now. But the vast majority of Muslims are non-white non-Westerners: ergo, they are beyond criticism. It's that simple.
A hadith of Mohammed: "There is no courage before the battle."
Trudeau and his ilk say 'I believe in free speech BUT I believe in not fighting for free speech more than I believe in free speech itself.
He is such a revolting spectacle of spinelessness that he even has me quoting Mohammed!
Sorry. Gary Trudeau is 'irrelevant'
and he's a coward to boot.
Posted by: the poetess
Poetess, you said it, hit the nail on the head, etc. For the record, I make it a point to ignore "Doonesbury" every time I open the newspaper, and have done so ever since he turned the Communist re-education of Viet Nam into a joke back in 1975.
Trudeau's drawings suck! Those stupid squared off noses are his only stylistic signature and there's never anything witty or funny in any of his comics. Give me "The Far Side (or Wiley)." Now that's funny.
I never cared for his political crap cartoons anyway.
"Dhimmsbury's Garry Trudeau, the cartoonist who has never offended anyone, weighs in on the Muhammad cartoons and says we should never cause offense to another."
In that case this moron shouldn't have said what he did, because I find his statement very offensive. Seriously, the claim that we should never cause offense to another is offensive to me. It is end of free speech, the end of being able to dress how you want (many muslims find the clothes of western women offensive), the end of many, many things.
He is breaking his own rule in the very act of claiming it. What a moron.
A modified saying that I learned as a ten year old - updated for the times:
'Tis better to say nothing and appear a coward than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
Mr. Trudeau has offended me with his cartoons. He has lampooned my conservative values over the years. I think he should practice restraint immediately and apologize to all offended. No more cartoons of this nature should be published or I will loose the abortion doctor killers upon him!
What a load of crap! Garry won't stand up to this twisted thinking because he blew his mind out with the rest of the hippies and his neurons are scrambled like eggs.
The PC multicultural attitudes in this country provide a shelter for cowards and a podium for hypocrites like this idiot. I'm sorry I ever laughed at any of his cartoons. I'm sorry I used to be a hippie. I'm sorry for a lot of things but I'll NEVER BE SORRY TO BE AN AMERICAN.
Gary Trudeau, I have 2 words for you. They are neither Merry Christmas, nor Happy Birthday. For that matter, not Blessed Ramadan either.
This is so depressing. Gary Trudeau has offended large numbers of people, and I doubt he has received anything worse than irate letters to the newspaper. indeed, I hope he hasn't.
What bothers me most is not even the caving in to the fear of doing work critical of Islam. It's not brave or pretty, but I do understand it.
What truly disturbs me is when these cowards (Trudeau is hardly the only one) pretend to take the moral high ground while censoring themselves and abandoning their fellow artists.
Trudeau's "point" is rather poorly taken. The NYT may not run cartoons that take runs at Moses, Jesus, Buddha or whomever, but then none of the aforementioned quite lived the pirateer's life of Mohammed nor did they exhort their followers to follow directly in his example as a divine duty. But I'm sure they have lampooned all sorts of Christians and Jews for perceived hypocracy.
On the other hand, I haven't heard of any Iranian embassies being attacked by Jews outraged by Ahmadinejad's sponsorship of a Holocaust deniers' "cartoonfest".
I've barely followed Gary Trudeau's work, but somehow I would have expected much better than this from from cartoon boy. Trudeau just put himself in the ignorant idiot or cowardly hypocrite pile. Reading these statements of his makes me feel like retching. Don't know if I'll ever see his comics again without getting that feeling.