The Cartoon Jihad

Melanie Phillips is a British journalist and author whose critics say she’s a conservative.

Phillips insists she’s a liberal. Maybe not a “today” liberal, but certainly a classical liberal.

Do you remember such liberals?

They said everyone should be equal before the law. They wanted women to have the same rights as men. They opposed racial preferences. They cherished that great western value, democracy.

Well, let’s leave the question of Phillips’ liberalism for another post.

In this post, let’s look only at her most recent column.

In immediate terms, Phillips’ column is about the cartoons. In broader terms, it’s about western civilization and the need to defend it.

If you read the first and last sentences of Phillips’s column, I think you’ll want to read it all.

Here’s the first:

The still escalating confrontation over the Danish cartoons dramatically illustrates the now pathological reluctance of the leaders of Britain and America to face up to the blindingly obvious and the extent to which they have already run up the white flag in the face of clerical fascism.

And here’s the last:

Twelve scribbled drawings have lifted the veil -- on both the nature of the threat and the disarray that greets it.

Phillips’ entire column is here.