The Silence of the Lambs

Molly Norris was a cartoonist in Seattle.   After Comedy Central edited out references to Muhammad in an episode of "South Park", Molly Norris published a poster on the Internet,  "satirically proposing that people draw figures of the Prophet Muhammad on May 20", which she proposed as "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day".  She quickly apologized and backed down, but The New York Times reports:

A cartoonist in Seattle who promoted an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” last spring is now in hiding after her life was threatened by Islamic extremists.

The cartoonist, Molly Norris, has changed her name and has stopped producing work for a local alternative newspaper, Seattle Weekly, according to the newspaper’s editor, Mark D. Fefer.


Mr. Fefer declined an interview request Thursday, citing “the sensitivity of the situation.” But in a letter to readers about Ms. Norris on Wednesday, he said that “on the insistence of top security specialists at the F.B.I., she is, as they put it, ‘going ghost’: moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity.”
......
Mr. Fefer wrote that Ms. Norris had likened her situation “to cancer — it might basically be nothing, it might be urgent and serious, it might go away and never return, or it might pop up again when she least expects it.” Mr. Fefer wrote that Ms. Norris had likened her situation “to cancer — it might basically be nothing, it might be urgent and serious, it might go away and never return, or it might pop up again when she least expects it.”

What is remarkable is the silence of the liberals.  For instance, there is only one diary on dailykos. Some may think that Molly Norris called this on herself by stirring a hornet's nest.  Well, the same is true of Imam Rauf and his Park51 mosque - he too stirred up a hornet's nest, but they were out in force defending him.  And at worst, his opposition was using their free speech rights.

If liberals want to control the narrative, they are going to have to be more aggressive in protesting threats to anyone's rights, not just their pet causes.

In the meantime, the Wall Street Journal, now solidly right-wing opines:

'There Is No More Molly'
Does Obama believe in the First Amendment for anyone other than Muslims

By JAMES TARANTO

"There is no more Molly," reports Seattle Weekly. Molly Norris, formerly a cartoonist for the alternative paper, has gone into hiding. At the suggestion of the FBI, "she is, as they put it, 'going ghost': moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity."

Why? Because, as the New York Times reports, imam Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Islamic supremacist who is himself in hiding in Yemen, issued a fatwa in July declaring that Norris "should be taken as a prime target of assassination" because of a cartoon she drew two months earlier titled "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day."

In October 2001, by the way, the New York Times described al-Awlaki, who then ran a mosque in Virginia, as someone who "is held up as a new generation of Muslim leader capable of merging East and West." How's that working out?

Here's another question: Where is President Obama? Last month, speaking to a mostly Muslim audience at the White House, the president strongly defended the right of another imam held up as a moderate to build a mosque adjacent to Ground Zero. The next day, and again at a press conference last week, Obama said he was merely standing up for the First Amendment. As far as we recall, it's the only time Barack Obama has ever stood up for anybody's First Amendment rights.

Now Molly Norris, an American citizen, is forced into hiding because she exercised her right to free speech. Will President Obama say a word on her behalf? Does he believe in the First Amendment for anyone other than Muslims?