Conservatives on liberal campuses sometimes complain about the heckler’s veto. In the name of protesting “hate,” student radicals shout down free debate.

More recently, analysts have been warning of a Jihadist’s veto. That is, people in key institutions become so worried that certain Muslims might take offense and become violent that the worrywarts do the radical mullahs’ work for them. That’s the subject of my column today in the American Spectator. It begins like so:

Before I wade into the controversy over Everybody Draw Mohammad Day, I suppose I should declare an interest. In February 2006, I was just starting to write a national affairs column for the New York Press. The alternative weekly’s former owner and columnist Russ Smith had written about the Danish Mohammad cartoon brouhaha. The editors wanted to reprint said cartoons to show readers what Smith was talking about. The new owners of the paper wouldn’t allow that, so the entire editorial team, led by editor Harry Siegel, resigned. There went my national affairs column [more...]

Last month, Mr. Wong performed before Vice President Joe Biden in Washington, earning a standing ovation at the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner. To prepare, he read Mr. Biden’s biography, he told the crowd, and, after meeting him, declared: “I think the book is much better.”

From the Wall Street Journal story about Chinese chemist Joe Wong and his dream of being a stand-up comedian in the U.S.

I don’t have pet peeves; I have major psychotic fucking hatreds, okay? And it makes the world a lot easier to sort out.

– comedian George Carlin.

My occassional co-blogger curses the gods of revisionism over at the Washington Times while reviewing Steven Grant and Scott Bieser’s Odysseus the Rebel:

Mr. Grant and Mr. Bieser’s Odysseus is much given to ranting against the gods. The winged god Hermes gives him a friendly warning. Ahead, he says, “you’ll find only death” by sailing into Hades. Odysseus snarls, “Then I’ll die, but I go where I want and ask no leave of god or man. So piss off.” The gods in turn are much given to bickering among themselves over how best to put Odysseus in his place. How much pain will be enough for the hero of the Trojan War finally to cry uncle?

In the original story, the ultimate solution to the caprice and cruelty of the gods was the favor of other gods, but this work is having none of that. In the author’s afterword, Mr. Grant writes, ” ‘The Odyssey’ climaxes as Odysseus, after a decade of resisting the will of the gods, surrenders to it and is allowed to claim home and family. But that always seemed edited to me.”

Jeremy even manages to throw in a haiku in the midst of a discussion on Greek mythology and philosophy: “You protest so much / against enemies long gone / it seems excessive.”