The leftist response to the latest furor in the Muslim world is in danger of being drowned out by crickets. Unfortunately the story has become too large to ignore, so Atrios explains:

I’m not too sympathetic with the notion that anything under the cover of religion is automatically entitled to deference. On the other hand, “don’t be an asshole” about peoples’ religious beliefs when they aren’t trying to impose them on you seems to be reasonably good etiquette. The cartoons weren’t funny and the visual portrayal of Mohammed was done just to “be an asshole” without any larger point to it. It’s like parading around in blackface just for the hell of it. There’s no point other than “I’m doing this to see who I can piss off.” I certainly defend the right to piss people off, though not always the decision to do so.

Strange, isn’t it, that a habitually potty-mouthed leftist should be so concerned with etiquette.

The larger point of the cartoons, for Atrios and anyone else too technologically challenged to use a search engine, can be found at Newspaperindex.com:

Jyllands-Posten called for and printed the cartoons by various Danish illustrators, after reports that artists were refusing to illustrate works about Islam, out of fear of fundamendalist retribution. The newspaper said it printed the cartoons as a test of whether Muslim fundamentalists had begun affecting the freedom of expression in Denmark.

So the response to this test demonstrates that there are indeed some assholes out there trying to impose their religious beliefs. And no, unfortunately for the left, it has nothing to do with Chimpy W. McHalliburton and the Far Right Wing’s attempts to pack the Supreme Court with “extremists”. Which goes a long way toward explaining the left’s lack of interest.

Most of the rest of the pro-anti crowd has nothing less inconsistent to say than Artrios, they’re just smart enough not to blurt it out.

Not that that would be Kos’ excuse. After a weekend of headlines about the violence the tag “muslim cartoons” at the left’s most popular site rates exactly one story. Kos himself hasn’t said anything about the cartoons yet, and if he never does we can safely assume it’s because “it’s pretty obvious — we don’t love terrorists”. Republicans “hate the terrorists because they’re Muslim” but at the same time love the American Taliban with whom they have so much in common.

This is the kind of ill-informed and self-contradictory piffle that passes for logic in the fever swamps of the traitorous left.