When Pigs Fly

There are certain activities I avoid in order to keep my blood pressure at acceptable levels. Reading a Jonah Goldberg column is pretty high on that list. I made an exception today because I wanted to see just what Mr. Goldberg had to say about the recent Koran burning in Florida. To my utter amazement (not to mention chagrin), Goldberg actually got it right, even with his mutterings about conservatism.

Like Goldberg, I think the First Amendment right to free speech is pretty close to an absolute. Also like Mr. Goldberg, however, I believe that while speech is protected, it is not above criticism, and that is the point of Goldberg's latest offering.

...We're in a different kind of war fought in an age in which news travels the world, uncensored and often distorted, with the speed of a mouse click. And in that context, there's simply no way to spin Jones' idiotic stunt as anything other than morally ugly and tactically unhelpful.

If, as we are so often told, the Muslim world is enduring a civil war between the crazies and the moderates, what good comes from Koran-burning? It offends "good" and "bad" Muslims alike. Moderate Muslims who seek to yank their societies out of the Dark Ages surely winced at Jones' stunt, and jihadists undoubtedly celebrated their propaganda windfall.

No, Pastor Jones is not an accessory to murder. As Goldberg says, those with the blood of the innocent victims on their hands are the murderers. What Pastor Jones did, however, was born of the same bigotry and hatefulness as the Muslim jhadists response, and his idiotic stunt should be decried as "morally ugly and tactically unhelpful."

So, here's one of those rare moments in eternity when I agree with Jonah Goldberg.