"Enough Apologies"

The tiff over Pope Benedict's anti-Islam remarks, and his subsequent quasi-apology, presented an interesting interplay between supposed papal infallibility and political pragmatism.  Of course, Benedict was not speaking ex cathedra during his visit to the University of Regensburg, but that distinction is largely lost on the rank and file.  It sure makes it hard to be a fallible sinner when you are prentending to be the Vicar of Christ on earth.

Also of interest were two op-ed pieces in this morning's Washington Post.  One, by E. J. Dionne, Jr., presented the typical smarmy appeasement approach.  He complained about how unhelpful Pope Benedict's words were towards our hopes for a positive "religious dialogue" between Christianity and Islam.  He actually complained that Benedicts remarks "take us back to arguments rooted in an era when Christianity and Islam were literally at sword's point."  This came the day after Al Quaeda in Iraq informed us that their jihad would not cease until every Christian was eradicated by the sword.  What a testimony to the delusional quality of so much liberal thought today.

But the other editorial offers hope that religious appeasement may finally be wearing thin.  Anne Applebaum wrote in "Enough Apologies," "Western politicians, writers, thinkers, and speakers should stop apologizing -- and start uniting...  since nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pourout of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all...  The fanatics attacking the pope already limit the right to free speech among their own followers.  I don't see why we should allow them to limit our right to free speech, too." 

See -- there still are real men in America, even if most of them are women.