Monday, January 30, 2006
Clinton Warns of Rising Anti-Islamic Feeling
Former US president Bill Clinton warned of rising anti-Islamic prejudice, comparing it to historic anti-Semitism as he condemned the publishing of cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.
"So now what are we going to do? ... Replace the anti-Semitic prejudice with anti-Islamic prejudice?" he said at an economic conference in the Qatari capital of Doha.
"In Europe, most of the struggles we've had in the past 50 years have been to fight prejudices against Jews, to fight against anti-Semitism," he said.
Clinton described as "appalling" the 12 cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in September depicting Prophet Mohammed and causing uproar in the Muslim world.
So Bill comes down clearly on the side of censorship, of the restriction of free speech if some governmental entity regards it as "offensive." There is no loophole for "offensive" or "appalling" speech in the First Amendment, and for an American President to call for essentially its repeal makes me want to impeach the lowlife again.
In the meantime, there are thousands of Islamist websites around the world openly calling for genocide of Jews and Christians, but apparently those beliefs aren't "offensive" to Our Beloved 41st President. Even for Bill--who has always wanted Muslims to love him more than he cared about American security, or anything else--this is a new low.