The ACLU Gets One Right (!)

Don't adjust your browser.  I know, it's flabbergasting.
(Hat tip: Stop the ACLU)

Black is white.  Up is down.  Dogs and cats living together.  Mass hysteria.

NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union today called upon the University of Illinois to reinstate the editor in chief and opinions page editor of the student newspaper, the Daily Illini, who were suspended after reprinting a series of controversial cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad.

“While we certainly understand the sensitivities surrounding the publication of explosive and controversial content,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “It has been the long-standing belief of the ACLU that the best response to speech we find odious and noxious is more speech - not less.”

In a letter sent today to the Chancellor of the University, the ACLU expressed concern and disagreement with the decision to suspend the two students from their positions and noted that upholding the premise of free speech, many universities, including the University of North Carolina, Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, have published the cartoons without any retribution against students or the publications involved.

The ACLU has a long and demonstrated commitment to protecting free speech, as well as the rights of Muslims, Arabs and Asians in the post-9/11 context. The organization urges the University of Illinois to further a dialogue with students and faculty, and reach out to Muslim and Arab students to address issues of concern to those students.

“We understand that the publication of the anti-Muslim cartoons presents vexing issues for a democracy, but we also believe that that is the price of an open society,” added Romero. “Democracy means a great many things to a great many people. But it must never be a quiet business.”

The Harvard Salient (the school's conservative paper) also published some of the villainous cartoons, but their editor, Travis R. Kavulla, has thus far avoided the level of public furor hurled at the Illini editors (despite Fox News reporting on Kavulla's infidel ways between segments of the big Cheney interview that has other cable news networks so tied up in knots).  The Salient made a compelling comparison between the relatively tame still life of the Danish cartoons and one comparably horrific illustration from a state-run Islamic publication.

Bill Clinton, in the meantime, has called on any country that feels maligned to convict the papers who ran the cartoons.

Clinton condemned the publication of the caricatures by European newspapers and urged countries concerned to convict the publishers, according to the reports.

He said religious convictions of the people should be respected at all costs and no media should be allowed to play with the religious sentiments of people of any faith.

Nice work, Bubba.  Isn't there enough fuel on this fire without lending the credibility (I assume overseas there must be some people that assign him credibility) of a former U.S. President?

Relatedly, for real-time coverage of today's Cartoon Jihad in Washington, check out Michelle Malkin's liveblog from the scene.