Political Notes
If, as the saying goes, all politics is local, then what do you make of a medium that allows people to broadcast their most provincial, reactive and often vile thoughts to millions of people with the mere click of a button? With Google’s cache feature and myriad screenshot programs at hand, there are no takebacks in online speech—just like real speech—and a ready record of triumphs and transgressions waits literally at the casual surfer’s fingertips.
Of course, Bill Hobbs should know all that. A former newspaper reporter and columnist, he has positioned himself as one of the leading conservative bloggers in Tennessee. He’s pioneered what he calls “blog-based journalism” as a counterpoint to what he sees as the deliberate distortions of the mainstream media. He offers services as a blogging consultant and organizes multi-partisan confabs of political bloggers. Hobbs is shrill but reputable: he recently set up a successful group blog in support of Republican gubernatorial lamb-for-slaughter Jim Bryson and keeps a day job in the public relations department at Belmont University. Bryson and Belmont, it should be noted, are both faith-based institutions.
Hobbs’ online street cred and apparent respect for religion make it even more surprising that he would post a cartoon lampooning the Islamic faith on one of his websites. In late February, at the height of Muslim furor over cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, Hobbs created a contest in which he invited readers to submit drawings of Mohammed. “Exercise your right to free expression by drawing pictures of Islam’s ‘Prophet Mohammed,’ ” Hobbs wrote, “before the West gives in to Islamist intimidation and fear of Islamist violence and makes it illegal to do so.” To kick things off, he posted a stick-figure drawing of Mohammed holding a bomb. Underneath the cartoon, in crude lettering, he wrote, “Mohammed Blows.”
Mike Kopp, a longtime Democratic politico, unearthed Hobbs’ failed attempt at satire and posted about it on his blog, tennesseepoliticalpulse.com. “I have no quarrel with a person’s right to free speech, but as a Christian, I believe this kind of expression goes against all the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament,” Kopp wrote, claiming the faithful high ground. He then rhetorically challenged Bryson and Belmont to defend their affiliation with Hobbs.
In the comments thread, Hobbs replied. “I posted that cartoon, and invited others to draw their own cartoons, as a way of protesting both American media cowardice and Islamist attempts to suppress free speech via threats of bombs and bullets and burning and beheading,” he wrote. Then, he added an apologetic afterthought: “But then I never publicized the site and, quite frankly, forgot is was up until today.” From there, the comments thread descended into a series of recriminations, marked by several quick posts in which Hobbs defended himself a little too vociferously. One might say nervously. Oh, and he deleted the cartoon.
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First, let’s sort some things out. For starters, Hobbs has the right to free speech, and Kopp has the right to hold him accountable for that speech. (For that matter, so do Belmont, Bryson and the Nashville Scene.) Hobbs’ stated point—that the media shouldn’t be intimidated into self-censorship by angry mobs of Muslims—is fairly non-controversial. Even those who chose not to publish the original cartoons would agree that violence is an illegitimate means of political expression.
But by deliberately desecrating Islam’s central figure—“the ‘Prophet Mohammed’ ” as Hobbs sneered, using quote marks for sardonic emphasis—he attacked an entire religion, not a group of fanatics who pervert the religion’s teachings. Then he drew him as a bearded stick figure holding a bomb and said he “blows.” It seems bearded Muslim terrorists are the new big-nosed, money-grubbing Jews. The more things change….
Here’s the best analogy five minutes of thought will yield: a stick figure rendering of Jesus sipping lemonade on the front porch while whipping an anguished bunch of black servants. “Jesus Slays,” the caption would read.
Would that be funny? Nope. Does it conflate a perversion of Christianity’s teachings—you know, the reading that licensed colonialism and slavery—with the man who taught them? Yep. But that’s Hobbs’ sophomoric, misguided brand of political humor. It’s better suited for the Duke lacrosse team than the modern Republican Party.
In any event, Hobbs says “the American media are cowards,” so we’ll take his challenge and publish an offensive, anti-Muslim cartoon. We just won’t defend the artist.