Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris has declared May 20th “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day,” in defense of Matt Stone and Trey Parker. All freedom-loving Americans should get behind this. While initially I thought it was an ironic joke that South Park was censoring everything related to Mohammed in their last episode, obviously we have seen over the last few days that against the creators’ will, Comedy Central cowered in the face of a thinly veiled Muslim threat.

In fact, submission, the definition of Islam, is the apt word to describe Comedy Central’s cowardice.

The bottom line is that the First Amendment guarantees free speech including criticism of all peoples. We are an equal-opportunity offense country. To censor ourselves to avoid upsetting a certain group (in a cartoon no less) is un-American.

It is especially egregious because it represents dhimmitude. We are sacrificing our law and our heritage to Sharia. The law of our land is the Constitution and beyond that the natural law granted to us by our divine creator.

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The mythical figure of the war correspondent has a special place in the history of American journalism. The images are indelibly etched in memory: Edward R. Murrow broadcasting live while Nazi planes showered London with bombs; Ernie Pyle telling the personal stories of life in the trenches and ultimately paying for those stories with his life; and in today’s war with the jihadists, Michael Yon’s amazing reports from Afghanistan. This kind of fearless reporting made for journalist-heroes: courageous men and women that all Americans could admire.

Contrast Murrow, Pyle, et al with the cowards populating today’s mainstream media outlets. Everyone in the media today – whether new or old – is a war correspondent, in fact if not in name. The war is here, around the globe and most of all within our borders, courtesy of bullies and thugs who have spent the better part of thirteen centuries killing non-believers and trying to force a backward, hateful ideology cloaked in the robes of religion upon the world. Yet, though this war includes not only body counts, but ultimately threatens the existence of the free press itself, the mainstream media meekly cowers as the foundations of free speech and a free society are worn away by Islamic gangsters. (more…)

While doing research for my upcoming book, tentatively titled Programming America (Harper Collins, due 2011), the inside story of the politically-motivated evolution of television from The Dick Van Dyke Show to Sex and the City and the very real bias of the industry against conservative content and creators, I interviewed Doug Herzog, President of MTV Networks Entertainment Group. He oversees Comedy Central, and he was kind enough to grant me some time and consent to taping our conversation on June 22, 2009.

During the course of that conversation, I asked Mr. Herzog about the network’s decision to censor South Park in April 2006 – in particular, the network shut down a segment that featured a cartoon image of Mohammed.

Here’s the audio:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

SHAPIRO: I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the controversy that surrounded the South Park/Mohammed controversy. How did that come about and what was the real story there?

HERZOG: The real story was the story you know, which is that the guys wanted to depict Mohammed and the network wouldn’t let them. And that was the whole story. And while I think if we had to do it all over again we would do it differently, that was the decision we made at the time. And I regret it somewhat but I’ve made worse decisions in my life. (more…)

Except to say that I never thought I would see the day when Americans would so meekly accede to threats, or even hints of violence, this news from Comedy Central is hardly surprising anymore.  From the Hollywood Reporter:

‘Muhammad’ now a dirty word on ‘South Park’

Now “South Park” can’t even say the words “Prophet Muhammad.”

After last week’s episode of the Comedy Central series sparked a threat (and yes, it was certainly a threat) from a radical Islamic website, the network has cracked-down-for-their-own-good on creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone during last night’s continuation of the show’s storyline.

For their own good… right.

For those who missed the drama, the show’s 200th episode last week mocked the one “celebrity” that the series has been largely unable to depict, the Prophet Muhammad, who was hidden from view in a bear costume. A U.S.-based website RevolutionMuslim.com then warned Parker and Stone they could end up like Theo Van Gogh (the Dutch filmmaker who was murdered by Muslim extremists after depicting Muhammad on his show) and even posted the address of the show’s production office. The site has since been shut down.

In case you’ve forgotten, here’s what happened to Theo Van Gogh for the crime of making a movie that criticized Islam: (more…)

Mark Steyn, at NRO, has this to say about Ann Coulter’s recent Kafkaesque experience in Canada:

A couple of days ago, I mentioned François Houle, the leftist apparatchik and provost of the University of Ottawa who threatened Ann Coulter with criminal prosecution before she’d even set foot on Canadian soil.

M. Houle warned Miss Coulter not to “promote hatred.” As this young lady points out in her report from the university, the only hate-promoter here is the buffoon Houle, whose barely veiled threats led to a gang of menacing Houligans (le mot juste) getting the event closed down. Alliances between the state’s ideological commissars and street mobs are a familiar feature of certain kinds of societies, and I suppose Canada will soon get used to its membership of this unlovely club. Ann Coulter says of her experience in the Great White North: (more…)