For Chris Matthews and many others in U.S. media, AFDI and its founder, Pamela Geller, acted irresponsibly and the intentionally provocative "Draw Muhammad" event Sunday evening served only to put people in harm's way. (AP Photo)
Chris Matthews leads anti-cartoon jihad after attack in Texas
MSNBC's Chris Matthews appeared distraught Monday evening as he sharply criticized the organizers of a "Draw Muhammad" contest that was attacked by terrorists this weekend, suggesting the art provoked the thwarted mass shooting.
Islamic State-linked terrorists Nadir Soofi, 34, and Elton Simpson, 30, who was convicted five years ago on terrorism charges and out on parole, were both shot and killed before they could carry out their intended attack on the nearly 200 people who had gathered for the event, which was organized by the New York-based American Freedom Defense Initiative.
However, for Matthews and many others in U.S. media, including Vox's Max Fisher and the New York Daily News' editorial board, AFDI and its founder, Pamela Geller, acted irresponsibly and the intentionally provocative "Draw Muhammad" event Sunday evening served only to put people in harm's way.
"I wonder whether this group that held this event down there to basically disparage and make fun of the prophet Mohammed doesn't in some way cause these events," Matthews said Monday, in comments that also suggested the attempted murder of cartoonists was in some way representative of America's "Muslim community."
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"Well, not the word 'causing' — how about provoking, how about taunting, how about daring? How do you see the causality factor here?" the longtime MSNBC host asked his guest, NBC terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann.
AFDI is not "standing by the principle" of free speech, Kohlmann said. "They're standing by the principle of hatred of other people. That's their guiding light, that's what they do. They're intentionally trying to provoke a response from the Muslim community, and unfortunately this was predictable."
Prior to the event Sunday evening, Texas officials told AFDI that it would need to bring on at least $10,000 worth of security, Kohlmann pointed out.
"So obviously someone knew that there was a likelihood that some stupid person would do this. And again, I don't think it's any great revelation that if you shout fire in a crowded theater, and you incite people, and you say nasty invective about people's ancestors and their religious symbols, that there are a couple of crazy nutcases that are going to come out of the woodwork and are going to try to take action over it," he said.
The terror analyst maintained that the botched terrorist attack on the Muhammad cartoon event had "nothing to do with Islam" and there are plenty of Christians and Jews who have "done the exact same thing."
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Newsrooms continued meanwhile to characterize the art exhibit as a deliberately "anti-Islam" event, suggesting that AFDI is more interested in provoking Muslims than it is in exercising its right to free speech.
At Vox, a so-called "explainer" news site, Max Fisher wrote of the Muhammad cartoon exhibit that, "this was not principally a free speech event; it was an anti-Muslim hate event."
For specific newsrooms that labeled the exhibit as "anti-Islam" and for Vox's Fischer, distaste for deliberately provocative depictions of Muhammad is at least consistent.
The same cannot be said for Matthews and other media commentators who took a decidedly more angry tone this week than they did in response to the massacre at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
In January, after Islamist terrorists responded to the magazine's repeated lampooning of Islam and Muhammad by killing 12 people in an assault on its Paris offices, Matthews and many others found it unconscionable that the publication should change its views over religious sensitivities.
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"[T]his whole thing being disaffected. Tough luck you're disaffected. You're living in France. The country is called France. It's French," Matthews said. "Liberty, equality, fraternity. Get with it. If you don't like living there, move! This idea that somehow France has to adjust to your thinking about what constitutes blasphemy is outrageous."
However, AFDI got no such courage defense from Matthews and other irate members of U.S. media.
Many journalists found the event more deserving of scorn than defense, as noted by Hot Air's Ed Morrissey.
"[T]he overwhelming response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre was to support free speech," he wrote. "Sadly, that focus on the higher goal of free speech didn't hold up as well this week after the shooting in Garland, Texas."
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