Way back during the George W. Bush administration a friend of ours used to write a political column for a local “alternative weekly.” The publication was typical of the genre, with lots of fashionably foul language, gushing praise of the city’s more noisome rock bands, and endless ridicule of organized religion. Our friend’s contribution was mostly the obligatory Bush-bashing, with one particularly memorable screed demanding that the president be boiled in oil.
One day around this time we were chatting with the same fellow at a party, doing our best to steer the conversation away from politics, when a local musician with a haircut borrowed from The Bay City Rollers walked up to congratulate our friend for being so very brave as to publish such dangerous dissent. Both men were visibly offended by the laugh we snorted, forcing us to explain that we had assumed the compliment would wasn’t intended seriously. Did either of them really believe that such little-read rants would result in a midnight raid by jack-booted storm troopers hauling the author off to prison as punishment for giving offense to the administration? Did they truly worry that the American public and the press would tolerate such an outrageous violation of the First Amendment?
They were both earnest in insisting that they expected nothing less of the evil Chimpy McBushitler, and held their chins up in the familiar pose of liberal nobleness as they vowed to persist nonetheless, but of course nothing unpleasant ever happened to either of them as a consequence of their political opinions. The magazine soon went out of business, but as a result of an oversupply of juvenile leftism and not because of any governmental suppression. So far as we know none of Bush’s many antagonists ever got that midnight knock on the door, and instead they tended to be rewarded with Academy Awards, Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, academic tenure, and the self-serving congratulations of the like-minded for being so very brave and independent-thinking.
The incident was brought to mind by reading The New York Times’ recent story about Nakoula Bassely Nakoula, who is now infamous as the creator of the little-seen movie that was blamed by the Obama administration for the death of an ambassador and three other Americans during the Sept. 11 assault on our embassy in Libya. Nakoula actually was hauled off to prison after running afoul of running the administration’s sensitivities, with the deed being done by an army of heavily-armed officers late at night in order to complete every detail of the most paranoid fantasies of the Bush era. Judging by the recent election results it seems that the American public finds this outrageous violation of the First Amendment quite tolerable, and judging by the Times’ treatment of the story the press is even more sanguine.
Headlined “From Man Who Insulted Muhammad, No Regret,” the story offers no sympathy for Nakoula’s plight, and instead seems to argue that anyone who criticizes Islam in a way that offends Muslims deserves whatever punishment he gets. Although the Times does grudgingly acknowledge that subsequent testimony from numerous witnesses has proved that Nakoula’s movie was not the motive for the deadly attack in Libya, a fact that even the administration has at long last been compelled to concede, they contend that he “fueled deadly protests across the Islamic world” and “inspired international outrage.”
The story correctly notes that Nakoula has been imprisoned for various violations of the conditions of his parole after a conviction on bank fraud, and convincingly establishes that Nakoula has numerous other glaring character faults, but it does little to allay the unavoidable suspicion that it is more than mere coincidence that he is behind bars after he made a movie that the president found objectionable. The father of a Navy SEAL who died heroically in Libya has told interviewers that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton assured him that “we’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did that video,” and the Times’ reporters are apparently unconcerned that is exactly what happened.
Such insouciance about a filmmaker being imprisoned for purely political reasons for exercising his First Amendment rights is especially odd coming from The New York Times, a publication that was for many years at the forefront of the fight for free speech. As recently as the controversies over of “Piss Christ,” the “Sensations” show and its dung-covered portrait of Mary, the play “Via Christi” with its homosexual Jesus, and other art world efforts to offend Christians it has been especially robust in defending the rights of artists, but it would seem that some religious groups are more deserving of freedom from offense than others. Criticizing Islam requires real bravery, as Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and the late Theo Van Gogh all demonstrate, but The Times is clearly more impressed by the false bravado of the Bush-bashing Christ-mocking sorts of dissidents.
The fact that Nakoula is a less than stellar character ordinarily wouldn’t concern The Times, either. The pornographer Larry Flynt, ephebophile poet Alan Ginsburg, and convicted cop-killer Mumia Abul Jamal have all been hailed as free speech heroes by the newspaper, and nothing in The Times’ extensive indictment suggests Nakoula is any less unsavory.
Nor should Nakoula’s confession to the parole violations matter, for a powerful government official intent on jailing an inconvenient writer or filmmaker will always be able to find some plausible pretext for doing so. We’re certain that Bush could have come up with something on our friend the political columnist, and we suspect that The Times would have mustered far more outrage if he had.
— Bud Norman
The Central Standard Times 