On August 26 and September 2, the Washington Post refused to run the weekly "Opus" comic strip by cartoonist Berkeley Breathed out of concerns of insensitivity to Muslims. NewsBusters associate editor wrote about the controversy here and here, and MRC president and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell discussed the Post's double standard on religious sensibilities on Glenn Beck's CNN Headline News program.
Weeks after the controversy has subsided, NewsBusters reader Rusty Weiss shot me a message informing me that a classic "Bloom County" strip from Breathed in the September 28 edition of Yahoo Comics is quite appropriate coming on the heels of the controversy (see below fold for the comic strip). Writes Weiss:
It would appear that Breathed noticed the sensitivities of the liberal media even back in the 80's. Wouldn't it be great if someone could stand up to this liberal double standard when it comes to material deemed to insensitive to Islamists, and tell those sensitive readers to do exactly what the character states in this strip?Of course, had that Opus strip simply offended Christians or Jewish readers, then it would have run without a hitch in the Post. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Of course, I can't say for certain whether the selection was Breathed's or Yahoo's, or if the selection was intentional or completely random. But either way, it's a reminder that solid political cartooning can have a classic edge that outlasts the time in which it was originally drawn.
