Friday, February 17, 2006

Pakistan reports Clinton says "convict publishers" of Muhammed Cartoons


UPDATED!!!!Scroll down. This story looks like it's not true.

This can't be correct. A Pakistani newspaper, the Daily Times, is reporting that ex- president Bill Clinton
on Friday condemned the publication of Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) caricatures by European newspapers and urged countries concerned to convict the publishers.

Talking to reporters after meeting Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in Islamabad, Clinton said he disagreed with the caricatures and that the publication was against religious and ethical norms.
Let's take this with a grain of salt because it is coming from a Pakistani publication. I would like to see some verification of this report. I cannot believe that Clinton would actually call for the convictions of editors and publishers who printed or reprinted these cartoons. According to the Pakistani paper, Clinton went on to say,
He said the people’s religious convictions should be respected at all costs and the media should be disallowed to play with the religious sentiments of other faiths. He said the media could criticise any issue including governments and people, but nobody had the right to play with the sentiments of other faiths.

Clinton said people in the US had also condemned the publication and were deeply concerned over it. He said they respected Islam, as it was the fastest growing religion in the US.
If this is true, then the ex-president has joined the pandering of the Democratic party's top guns, from Hillary Clinton to Dean to Sharpton to Kerry to Kennedy to Jesse Jackson to Pelosi to Gore and all the rest which knows no bounds of decency. They are willing to spout whatever poison they deem to be most pleasing to the ears of their listeners. The verdict is pretty well in on all the rest but I thought that Clinton would at least try to avoid Jimmah Cartering himself so obviously in front of whatever salivating host was present. Especially in the presence of a leader of a country that is one of the worst offenders in the day-to-day, week-to-week, month-in and month-out and year-to-year vicious denegrating of the Jewish, Christian, European and American peoples as pigs, dogs and sons of monkeys.

Again, I say if this is true. I pray that it is not. Naaah, can't be . . . can it?

UPDATE: Checking 60 some sources now on the net with this story: VOA doesn't corroborate the "convict publishers" comment.
PakTribune doesn't corroborate
M&C, via Deutsche Presse-Agentur doesn't corroborate
Kaiser doesn't cooborate
Outlook India.com not only does not corroborate the Pakistan Daily Times story, but seemingly contradicts it.
"We live in societies where people are free to say the wrong things and right things. But I would not be surprised if the person who drew those cartoons and the newspaper which decided to print them may not even know that it was considered blasphemous to have any kind of personal depiction of the Prophet," he (Clinton) said.

The BBC doesn't corroborate.

I think I see what has happened here. The ex-president is quoted in several of the news sources as saying that
religious convictions of the people should be respected at all costs and no media should be allowed to play with the religious sentiments of people of any faith.
The Pakistan Daily Times needs an English translator.

Should I take down the post or should we find a Pakistani consulate to burn, anyway?
How many times can I hurredly misspell corroborate?


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