The Gump Rule

Stephen Spruill at NRO's Media Blog provides video of Bill Bennett, Wolf Blitzer and James Zogby discussing the cartoon jihad on CNN. Zogby does his best to prevent Bennett from speaking but Bennett feeds both CNN and Zogby their lunches regardless. Bizarrely, the segment is introduced with images of a dozen or so anti-semitic cartoons that have appeared in the pages of the Arab Press. Bennett remarks of the brazen double standard: "CNN doesn't have the solicitude it does for Muslims." Blitzer responds that Jews around the world want the images to be seen. On this, Spruill notes:

Blitzer didn't seem to realize that he had just illustrated why showing the Danish cartoons in the American media is so important. Jewish groups want the world to see cartoons like these because they know that such propaganda says more about the Arab governments that create it. Muslim groups don't want the world to see cartoons like these because these cartoons are about the use of radical Islam to justify violence. That's why CNN's decision not to show the Danish cartoons is disgraceful. They are giving into the demands of a faction that wants to censor the political content of those cartoons, and there's no excuse for that.

Bennett's argument, although brief, is pitch perfect. Near the end of the segment, he notes that, just as it is with Stupid, "Islam is as Islam does." The notion that a group shall be known by its deeds is not revolutionary. Held to that standard, is it any wonder Islam finds itself with an image problem?