A Cartoon To Die For?

Georgie Anne Geyer, turns her sharp gaze on most recent crisis in the Middle East -- this one spawned by political cartoons deemed by some elements as insulting to Islam, blasphemous for even depicting the prophet Mohammed. As usual, the classy Geyer is a cool head when others are loosing theirs. Over the decades she's been impossible to label in a world determined to force "liberal" or "conservative" labels on every person and every idea. Here are a few sentences of Geyer’s column, "Cartoon Reactions Turns Up Flame Under a Simmering Middle East."

“...What do these maddened demonstrations, riots and arsons say about what is really happening in the heart and soul of the Middle East? Unfortunately, they illustrate the extent to which the Arab and Islamic world, far from moving toward more just and democratic societies, is again sinking into the old religions and ethnic sectarianism that have cursed this region, with so much intrinsic potential, for so long. Just this week, Muslim mobs were attacking Christian churches in Beirut again; Christians have been leaving Iraq in droves; and the Shiite-Sunni split in Iraq, with all its historical ugliness, is back upon us.”