KK calls Democrats whiners

"

Since Nov. 2, we've heard lots of grumbling from Minnesota Democrats. In a year of unprecedented GOP gains across America, they're not satisfied that their candidates won every statewide office in our state (subject to a recount in the governor's race).

DFLers, it seems, are sore that they didn't win the Minnesota House and Senate as well -- completing their sweep. They don't seem to grasp that the tide that washed through the Minnesota Legislature was a nationwide phenomenon, as voters shouted "enough" to a Democrat-led glut of taxes, spending and deficits. Today, Republicans hold more legislative seats across the country than at any time since 1928.

DFLers should be counting their blessings. Instead, from their blinkered perspective, the GOP's capture of the Minnesota Legislature appears aberrant and dreadful. And they've found a bogeyman to blame: Minnesota businesses. Their gripe seems twofold. First, business, through independent groups like the Coalition of Minnesota Businesses, spent too much -- i.e., "bought and paid for" the Legislature. And, second, business groups unconscionably exploited voters with negative advertising.

We hear this so much that the reality comes as a surprise: Minnesota Democrats and their allies actually outspent Republicans and their allies in 2010 roughly 2 to 1, though final totals won't be known for some time.

The Senate DFL caucus raised four times more than the Senate GOP caucus, and the House DFL caucus raised two times more than its GOP counterpart. The DFL state party raised over three times more than the state GOP. Mark Dayton raised more than one and a half times what Tom Emmer did.

Business promoted a pro-jobs agenda of more streamlined government, lower taxes and more controlled spending. Voters resonated to this message in an age when capital is highly mobile, and you can work as easily from South Dakota, Mumbai or Beijing if you have Internet access and a smart phone.

Without business' involvement, Minnesota's electoral field would largely have been left to Democrats and their biggest donors: public employee unions such as Education Minnesota, AFSCME and SEIU, and Indian tribes with big-bucks casino interests.

All political contributions have an element of self-interest. But we all benefit from a healthy business climate. More jobs mean more prosperity, more families with good health insurance, more kids in our schools.

But the interests of public employee unions and tribes don't parallel voters' interests. These groups are monopolies, intent on electing legislators who will lock in their monopoly benefits. Unions donate huge sums to elect their own bosses, expecting them to increase benefits and hire more public employees to keep union donations flowing.

DFLers' second complaint is that business groups relied on below-the-belt negative advertising. This rings hollow. In 2010, the left threw the first and dirtiest mud ball.

On July 6, Alliance for a Better Minnesota (ABM) -- an independent, DFL-allied group funded primarily by public unions and Dayton's family -- launched what was probably the earliest attack ad in Minnesota campaign history, targeting Tom Emmer more than a month before the DFL even had a gubernatorial candidate.

Factcheck.org, a project of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Center, labeled the first ABM ad's claims about Emmer "false" and "pure nonsense." A second ad used a mother's grief about her son's death at the hands of a drunk driver to focus on Emmer's decades-old DWIs. You can be sure ABM didn't mention that its own favorite candidate -- Mark Dayton -- is a recovering alcoholic who has acknowledged temporarily returning to drink sometime after February 2005 while representing Minnesota in the U.S. Senate.

Thanks to ABM's early funding edge, its anti-Emmer ads ran 2,400 times before the Aug. 10 primary, while the one pro-Emmer ad that ran appeared just 330 times, according to the Campaign Media Analysis group.

Every ad that ABM ran -- with its $5 million-plus budget -- was negative. ABM's parent organization, ProgressNow, prides itself on taking negativity to new lows. Yet when Republicans use negative mailers that focus on DFL candidates' records, Democrats moan about our negative electoral climate.

If business "bought" Minnesota's new legislative majorities, does that mean the unions bought our Legislature in previous years? Democrats' outrage seems to betray a sense of entitlement to power. Instead of fuming, they might better reflect on whether such arrogance is one reason that voters around the country drummed them out of"

KK tells us how schools should be run .. with a single source

"

Last summer, Money magazine named Eden Prairie as the "best small city" in America. It highlighted the Twin Cities suburb's "top-notch" schools as a primary reason the thriving community is "great for raising a family."

But the days of Eden Prairie's pride in its schools may be numbered. School officials have announced a plan to abandon the district's neighborhood-schools model and to bus hundreds of elementary students across town to balance schools on the basis of income. Parents are up in arms about the plan -- scheduled for a decision in December -- but officials insist the upheaval will be justified. The economic diversity that results, they promise, will improve the academic achievement of low-income, minority children.

Have we learned nothing? From the 1970s to the 1990s, America conducted a massive social-engineering experiment in race-based busing that was expected to improve the academic achievement of low-income, minority children. The experiment failed virtually everywhere it was tried -- from Boston to St. Louis, Kansas City to San Francisco. Busing for "desegregation" had little, if any, reliable effect on minority achievement. It did, however, wrench neighborhoods apart, create insurmountable obstacles to parental involvement, cost vast sums and send middle-class families fleeing to the suburbs.

Eden Prairie need look no farther than Minneapolis to see where forced busing can lead. The city bused students for racial balance for more than 20 years, but black achievement hardly budged. In 1996, a fed-up Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton called for an end to the practice.

Income-based busing is the new rage, because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled busing for racial balance unconstitutional in 2007. Wake County, N.C. -- which has bused for income balance for 10 years -- is often cited as glowing proof that this approach works. In 2007, Myron Orfield of the University of Minnesota's Institute on Race and Poverty, who has presented to the Eden Prairie school board on income-based school assignment, lauded Wake County's results in the Star Tribune.

Wake County citizens beg to differ. In 2009, they voted in a new school board, and today the program is being dismantled.

Income-based busing "sounds like a noble idea," says new board member John Tedesco. "But it was terrible for kids and for the community. We took our eye off the prize -- academic achievement for all kids -- and put it on trying to meet quotas in a balancing act."

In the last five years, Wake County test scores and graduation rates have dropped every year, and the racial achievement gap has widened, says Tedesco. Low-income students have suffered most. "We were classifying kids by group, and labeling low-income kids 'at risk' just because of the money in their parents' pockets," he says. "We've actually dumbed these kids down." A recent study found that 80 percent of high-performing low-income students, who should be in challenging classes, were in fact assigned to remedial classes, he adds.

Wake County's test scores and SAT scores are still better than those of most other North Carolina districts, according to Tedesco. But that's misleading. As home to the renowned "Research Triangle," the county has one of the most highly educated workforces in America. "The academic success we do have is attributable to our demographics, not our busing program," says Tedesco.

Income-based busing has provoked cultural division, not unity. "It started pitting us against one another, because it classified people in terms of groups and set school quotas," Tedesco explains. Ironically, racial segregation has actually increased in Wake County schools. While the county's overall poverty rate is about 10 percent, its schools are now at 30 percent because the affluent are fleeing to private schools, says Tedesco. The national average for opting out of public schools is about 8 1/2 percent, he says. "Our rate has doubled in 10 years to almost 18 percent. Guess who's left behind?"

Tedesco sums up Wake County's "nightmare" this way: "Income-based busing tore apart our schools. It tore apart our community. It got our parents fighting one another. It created an academic mess, an efficiency mess and a cultural mess."

Eden Prairie is one of a number of districts -- including Hopkins, Bloomington and Osseo -- where racial and income "balancing" is a growing issue. Orfield has proposed a "comprehensive strategy to integrate" the entire Twin Cities metro area.

Before Minnesota embarks on yet another grand experiment in wishful thinking and social engineering, we might listen to David Armor of George Mason University, who has studied busing and desegregation for 30 years. Districts that consider income-based busing plans "are undertaking policy shifts that bring great controversy and costs, with no solid evidence that this will improve education for anyone,"

KK applauds America for believing another set of lies

"

Last week's historic election repudiated the grandiose, left-wing governance schemes of President Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress. Conservatives are still toasting the victory. But the election, and the two years leading up to it, hold lessons that go well beyond this election cycle. America, it turns out, is a far more resilient nation than we had feared.

When Obama walked through the White House doors in January 2009, several factors suggested that, from a conservative point of view, the world was coming to an end.

Obama had billed himself as postpartisan and pragmatic. But he demonstrated quickly that his "hope and change" program meant not just a tilt to the port side but a hard-left tack. He pushed relentlessly for schemes of unprecedented scope --from a quasi-governmental takeover of health care to potentially economically debilitating cap-and-trade legislation. Conservatives feared that even if such changes prompted grumbling they would eventually embed themselves in voters' expectations.

Obama's allies in his campaign to remake America, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid, steered the liberal juggernaut through a Democrat-heavy House and a filibuster-proof Senate. This trio's bare-knuckle, Chicago-style approach seemed almost invincible. They rammed through a deeply unpopular health care bill by using end runs around Senate rules and bald-faced buyoffs, including the infamous "Cornhusker kickback" and "Louisiana Purchase" that finally snared support from Sens. Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu.

Conservatives could also point to larger factors that seemed to signal an ominous long-term trend. After Obama's election, liberal commentators proclaimed that a permanent realignment of single women, young people, blacks and Latinos would soon render conservative politicians extinct. In his 2009 "The Death of Conservatism," Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times Book Review, announced that the decades-long "Reagan Revolution" was dead and buried and that Big Government was here to stay.

To these prophesies, many conservatives added cultural concerns. They warned of a softening of character and a decline of civil society that threatened to push Americans into government's smothering embrace. They cited the deterioration of the family -- society's most fundamental governmental unit -- and a campaign by elites to redefine marriage itself. And they pointed to an erosion of religion and other cultural guideposts that hold us to a standard higher than "give me mine."

As conservatives looked across the Atlantic, their gloom increased. They feared they saw the end game of Obama's welfare state in chaotic Greece and France, with their ever-expanding public sectors, powerful unions and insatiable sense of entitlement.

But last week's repudiation of Big Government confirmed that we were wrong to be tempted by despair. The election demonstrated that there is something in the American spirit that rejects the siren song of the nanny state.

The gains were sensational -- at least 61 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, the biggest electoral shift since 1948. In the Senate, a pickup of six seats may bring de facto control, as some Democrats there show newfound zeal for working with Republicans. (Divided House and Senate control may be the best scenario for Republicans going into the presidential race of 2012). Republicans now hold at least 30 governorships. The GOP gained more than 680 state legislative seats nationwide -- giving it the greatest number of seats since 1928 -- and now has majorities in both legislative chambers in 26 states.

In Minnesota, Republicans won majorities in the both the House and Senate and saw newcomer Chip Cravaack defeat liberal icon Jim Oberstar in the Eighth Congressional District. The governor's race may be close enough to trigger a recount.

Hopefully liberals will learn a lesson about political hubris and overreach. But the election holds a more important and reassuring lesson for conservatives: Americans can stand up to liberalism's temptations. They can see government "candy" for what it is and have the wherewithal to reject it as undermining the ideas at our nation's core: liberty, free enterprise, opportunity and self-determination.

The grass-roots revolt began with ordinary people standing up, one by one, at town hall forums to proclaim their opposition to Big Government. Legions of activists and candidates -- completely new to politics -- reenergized demoralized conservatives. The Tea Party movement grew spontaneously, as citizens said "no" to replacing America's founding vision of individualism and limited government with a statist model that will restrict freedom in the name of redistributionist "fairness" and encumber future generations with a crushing public debt.

The great lesson of this election is that America may not be on an inexorable slide to soft political tyranny and cultural drift. Our nation is built of sterner stuff than we dared to hope."

KK is reminded of Halloween and the boogie man

"

In the heady days of 2008, Americans warmed quickly to the prospect of Barack Obama as our 44th president. Obama promised to be just what our fractured nation needed -- a non-ideological, post-partisan consensus builder, guided by mainstream pragmatic thinking.

When the story broke about Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- his pastor for 20 years, a "black-power" radical and a fan of Fidel Castro -- we raised our eyebrows. We did the same when we heard of Obama's longtime connection to Bill Ayers, an unrepentant former Weather Underground terrorist. But Obama blew these relationships off as exaggerated or unimportant, and we trusted his assurances.

Now a new book by Stanley Kurtz -- a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a Harvard PhD -- reveals why we should have probed the disconnect when we had a chance. Americans increasingly sense we were sold a bill of goods, and Kurtz explains why in "Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism." Our president isn't what he claims to be, says Kurtz. Obama's plummeting approval ratings, and the electoral tsunami about to hit Democrats, reflect voters' sense of betrayal.

In fact, Kurtz goes further, and makes an electrifying charge: Obama has purposely disguised what he believes, and is actively seeking to mislead the American people about his agenda. Obama, says Kurtz, is a socialist. He believes -- not in state ownership -- but in a savvier version of socialism that seeks to transform and undermine American capitalism through ever-expanding government control; irreversible entitlements; and a metastasizing public sector.

I know this sounds far-fetched. Even Kurtz says he didn't expect it when he began his research. But the more we learn about "community organizing" -- which Obama has called the "best education" he ever had -- the more we see that Wright and Ayers were clues to a below-the-radar radical network that has shaped both the president's worldview and the deceptive tactics he uses to disguise it.

Americans were lulled into ignoring Obama's background because they think of "community organizers" as well-intentioned do-gooders. In fact, the father of community organizing was Saul Alinsky, a far-left icon and the author of the 1971 book, "Rules for Radicals." Alinsky taught that community organizing is about accumulating the raw power necessary for the radical transformation of America's economic and social structure.

Alinsky knew that the American people are not ready for socialism. To advance radical goals, he said, activists must pose as pragmatists and work within the system. While New Left radicals were rioting at the 1968 Democratic convention, Alinskyite community organizers were working behind the scenes, infiltrating Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty and funneling money to their far-left organizations. In dealing with "enemies" Alinsky was ruthless. He advocated the "politics of personal destruction": "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

Obama began his career as a community organizer in Chicago in 1985. His teachers were Alinsky disciples, and he immersed himself in their ideas and methods. For years, Obama ran workshops on Alinsky's methodology, worked with Alinskyite organizations, and served on radical boards.

Obama got his start in politics in 1996, when Illinois state Sen. Alice Palmer hand-picked him to succeed her. Kurtz describes Palmer as a "hard Marxist," who had praised the Soviet Union in the communist People's Daily World. Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn -- another notorious Weather Underground alum -- hosted an announcement party at their home. During his campaign, Obama promised to bring the spirit of community organizing to his new position.

In 2004, after Obama became a U.S. senator, Michelle Obama confirmed his Alinskyite intentions. "Barack is not a politician first and foremost," she said. "He's a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change."

Obama's immersion in socialist organizing, and his mastery of the tactics of infiltration and disguise, explain both his agenda and modus operandi as president. He has relentlessly advanced the incremental strategy of his mentors -- vastly expanding state control in the health care, energy, environmental and financial sectors. Cronies from his community organizing days have advised his campaign, crafted his grassroots strategy and lobbied for his programs, according to Kurtz. We see Alinsky's ghost in Obama's tactical ruthlessness, and his ferocious, unprecedented demonization of opponents.

Over the past two years, Americans have grown increasingly angry that Obama's governance has differed so starkly from his campaign rhetoric. Kurtz reveals that Obama was intentionally deceiving us all along."

KK takes on TIZA again ..

"

The battle over the role of Islam in a Minnesota public school is heating up again in a federal courtroom in St. Paul. The conflict began in January 2009, when the ACLU of Minnesota sued Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy -- a K-8 charter school with campuses in Inver Grove Heights and Blaine -- for violating constitutional prohibitions against government endorsement of religion.

TiZA since has fought tooth and nail -- erecting procedural barriers to prevent the ACLU from investigating what goes on behind its doors. The school's tactics have gone far beyond the usual rough-and-tumble of lawyers in our adversary system. Its chief tool has been attempted intimidation of all who would draw back the curtain on its secrets.

One of TiZA's first targets was the ACLU itself. A few months after the suit began, the school filed a $100,000-plus defamation claim, citing ACLU executive director Chuck Samuelson's simple statement that "[TiZA is] a theocratic school ... as plain as the substantial nose on my face." The court dismissed the claim.

In January 2010, the ACLU was back in court to seek a protective order, on grounds that intimidation by TiZA was discouraging potential witnesses from appearing. The ACLU filed affidavits by a former TiZA parent and a former TiZA staff member, who described what they interpreted as threats of violence against them. In her affidavit, the female staff member said that Asad Zaman -- TiZA's executive director -- had suggested after she displeased him: "We could just kill you, yeah tell your husband we'll do his job for him." (Zaman has no recollection of making such a statement, he said in an affidavit.) The court barred witness harassment or intimidation by either party.

In June 2010, the ACLU returned to court to quash what it described as yet another TiZA attempt to intimidate current and former employees from speaking about what they had seen at the public school. TiZA's "Staff Handbooks include a secrecy clause, and related threat of legal action for violating it," according to the ACLU's court filings. TiZA "wields [these provisions] as a sledgehammer to keep former employees quiet about what they saw at the school." As a result, "former TiZA employees have expressed fear about speaking to the ACLU."

According to the ACLU, TiZA's refusal to agree not to enforce the secrecy clause "sends the ominous signal that current and former employees who talk to the ACLU may be forced to defend themselves against a baseless, expensive lawsuit."

On Oct. 1, Judge Donovan Frank agreed -- affirming an order the ACLU had earlier won barring TiZA from enforcing the confidentiality clause in the context of this litigation.

The court's order and memorandum spoke volumes: "It appears that information related to TiZA's business, finances, operations and office procedures is public data and cannot be kept secret." "The relevant question ... is why TiZA, a public charter school, does not want to allow its former and current employees to participate in the informal discovery process to ascertain the truth about how TiZA operates."

The court's strong language in response to TiZA's actions was unusual: "[I]ntimidation and threats will not sit well with a fact-finder such as a jury." As a result of the school's actions, "[T]he Court may be required to draw adverse inferences about how TiZA operates as a result of TiZA's efforts to keep information about its operations secret. ... [TiZA's] behavior during the discovery process thus far ... has not been consistent with a good faith search for the truth."

The ACLU has characterized TiZA's recent actions regarding the secrecy clause as "only the last in a long line of intimidation efforts." Not quite. Last month, an attack was launched from a different front.

Several organizations that are not even parties to the lawsuit went to court in an attempt to disqualify the ACLU's lawyers -- Dorsey & Whitney -- from representing the ACLU on grounds that Dorsey personnel had previously communicated with Zaman about entities involved in the litigation. The organizations include the Muslim American Society of Minnesota (MAS-MN), MAS-MN Property Holding Corporation and the Minnesota Education Trust (MET).

What might they fear? Perhaps that Dorsey lawyers are in a position to prove that the scandal thus far -- and Zaman's role in it -- is just the tip of the iceberg. Dorsey lawyers had this to say in a Sept. 10 letter filed with the court:

"The ACLU believes Mr. Zaman's testimony relating to control of virtually every significant event at TiZA, MAS-MN, MET and MET's subsidiaries, coupled with his efforts to hide such control, constitute powerful evidence against TiZA's denials that it is a Muslim school and that it funnels state and federal money to other Muslim organizations."

Every time we read about this lawsuit, we have to pinch ourselves and say: We're talking about a public, taxpayer-funded school.

KK explains why gay marriage is the most important issue

Katherine Kersten: This year, the family is on the ballot

Minnesota's choice for governor will determine marriage's fate in this state.

"

This year's election is supposed to be about jobs, bloated budget deficits, taxes and other economic issues. No doubt it will be. But more is at stake.

On Nov. 2, the family -- and marriage as we know it -- will be on the ballot in Minnesota.

Mark Dayton and Tom Horner both promise to bring same-sex marriage to our state. Their allies in the Legislature and a phalanx of pressure groups are poised to make this happen. Last year, a slew of bills related to this project was introduced. Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto threat was vital to keeping them from becoming law.

Next year, Democrats will likely try to steamroll same-sex marriage through. If Dayton or Horner is elected, the governor will be on board -- perhaps even leading the charge.

Tom Emmer takes a different stance. He's the only gubernatorial candidate who supports marriage as the union of one man and one woman, as it has existed in Western civilization for 2,000 years.

Why redefine marriage? Dayton's and Horner's answers may sound appealing. On his website, Dayton promises to "make Minnesota the sixth state ... to recognize that the love and commitment shared by same-sex partners is as real and meaningful as their opposite-sex counterparts." On his site, Horner proclaims that "the quest for marriage equality is a simple matter of fairness, of equal opportunity under the law."

Notice: Neither Dayton nor Horner mentions the stakeholders who have the most to win or lose in the marriage battle -- children.

Though Dayton and Horner may be loath to admit it, marriage has been a male/female institution -- across the globe and throughout history -- for a simple reason, rooted in biology. Sex between men and women creates babies. It's the only kind of sex that does.

Marriage is a "conjugal" concept, based on the sexual complementarity of men and women. It channels the powerful male/female sex drive to positive ends, to ensure that children will -- whenever possible -- have the love, support and guidance of both their mother and father. By linking fathers to their children, marriage strengthens an otherwise tenuous bond that is vital for both children's and society's well-being.

This truth about marriage's core purpose is highly inconvenient for same-sex marriage supporters. To evade it, they employ a two-pronged rhetorical strategy.

First, they portray the purpose of marriage as being simply to encourage, and publicly affirm, adults' "love and commitment" -- Dayton's words. If we grant this premise, it becomes a denial of "equal rights" to withhold marriage from two men or two women who care for each other. "How will my same-sex marriage hurt your marriage?" gay-marriage supporters ask. They expect the answer to be "not at all."

But marriage is not primarily about affirming "love and commitment." Otherwise, government would regulate friendships as well as marriages. At its core, marriage is a social institution, whose public purpose is to structure male/female sexual relationships in a way that maximizes the next generation's well-being.

Same-sex marriage advocates' second rhetorical ploy is to charge that their opponents are motivated by fear, bigotry and hatred toward homosexuals. In 2004, for example, Dayton told a crowd of gay-rights activists that people who support a constitutional amendment to protect male-female marriage are "the forces of bigotry and hatred" who "spew hatred and inhumanity," according to the Star Tribune.

But most traditional-marriage supporters don't "fear" or "hate" homosexuals. On the contrary, they invite gays to live as they please. They simply believe that every child needs and deserves a mother and a father. And they suspect that the radical redefinition of marriage will have damaging, unpredictable long-term consequences for all of society.

I've got questions for Dayton and Horner:

If we abandon the conjugal idea of marriage -- and redefine marriage as appropriate for any two caring adults -- on what grounds can we continue to limit the institution to two people? If love and commitment are sufficient for two, why not three or more? "How does my polygamous marriage hurt your marriage?" Same-sex marriage supporters have no logical answer.

And how can we logically limit marriage to people in a sexual relationship? If marriage is simply about caring adults, why shouldn't a grandmother and daughter raising a child together have its benefits? Going forward, on what grounds can we discriminate against people simply because they don't have sex together?

Same-sex marriage supporters try to exploit Americans' goodwill. They know people don't want to be against "equal rights," or to be labeled a bigot or hate-monger. But support for traditional marriage has nothing to do with such things. It's about doing all we can to ensure that as many children as possible have what they need and deserve -- a mother and a father."

KK explains why Islam has more freedom

"

In April 2010, Molly Norris, an editorial cartoonist at the Seattle Weekly, learned that the creators of the TV comedy "South Park" had been threatened with death by a Muslim extremist. The threat came after an episode in which the Prophet Mohammed appeared in a bear suit -- an allusion to Islam's prohibition against his depiction.

Norris was indignant at this use of threats of violence to stifle free speech. In protest, she drew a lighthearted cartoon of a poster announcing "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day." Tongue firmly in cheek, she named the day's sponsor as a nonexistent group: "Citizens against Citizens against Humor."

Today, Norris fears for her own life. On the FBI's advice, she's "gone ghost" -- changed her name and identity and abandoned her livelihood. The reason: A radical Muslim imam has called for her assassination on grounds that she blasphemed against Islam.

This sort of assault on free speech -- one of the West's most cherished liberties -- has become sadly familiar in places like the Netherlands and Denmark. In 2004, for example, a Muslim extremist slit the throat of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in retribution for his movie condemning the abuse of women in conservative Islamic societies. In 2006, Dutch-Somali writer and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- an outspoken critic of Islam -- was forced to flee Holland after threats on her life. In Denmark, cartoonist Kurt Westergaard lives under police protection after a Somali man attempted to murder him.

Now an event like this may be shaping up in America, with chilling implications for freedom and the rule of law. Yet chances are you haven't even heard about it.

Norris' disappearance was prompted by a "fatwa" issued by Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born imam living in Yemen. Awlaki has been cited as inspiring Nidal Hasan's massacre of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, as well as Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempt to bomb Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009 and the botched Times Square car bomb in May 2010.

Awlaki's fatwa against Norris was posted on the Internet by an Al Qaida- inspired magazine whose mission is to radicalize young Muslims. The fatwa ordered the cartoonist's "execution." Her "proper abode is hellfire," wrote Alwaki. "She "does not deserve life, does not deserve to breathe the air."

Surely, you say, American journalists and media moguls -- always staunch defenders of the First Amendment -- are proclaiming outrage and rallying round this young woman? On the contrary. The media have largely been silent about her nightmarish plight.

When the Washington Examiner, an on-line newspaper in Washington, D.C., asked the American Society of News Editors for a statement about Norris, none was forthcoming. Ditto for the Society of Professional Journalists. This, despite the fact that the editors group's mission statement extols "the First Amendment at home and free speech around the world," while the journalists claim to stand for "the perpetuation of the free press as the cornerstone of our nation and liberty."

Principle and backbone were more in evidence back in 1989, when Iran's radical Ayatollah Khomeini launched the current drive to extend Islamic law to the West. After Khomeini accused British novelist Salman Rushdie of blasphemy in "The Satanic Verses" and called for his death, the U.S. Senate unanimously resolved "to protect the right of any person to write, publish, sell, buy and read books without fear of violence."

But since 9/11, American media have increasingly caved to threats from radical Islam. The new norm is a self-censorship consistent with Muslim teaching that Islam must be free from insult, though other religions may be insulted at all times.

The best-known example of this double standard took place in 2005, when a handful of Danish cartoons mocking Mohammed sparked bloody riots throughout the Muslim world. American newspapers covered the protests closely. Yet only a handful of papers printed the cartoons that triggered the riots. Editors justified this self-censorship by invoking their "sensitivity" toward religious belief -- a quality rarely in evidence when the subject is Christianity.

This year, Yale University Press printed a book about the incident, entitled "The Cartoons That Shook the World." Originally, editors planned to include the cartoons, but Yale University intervened to prohibit this, citing concerns about violence.

When the Rev. Terry Jones, a self-promoting crackpot, threatened to burn the Qur'an, public figures -- starting with President Obama -- lined up to denounce his intolerance. Apparently, none of these people has had the courage to do the same with Awlaki and his henchmen, who pose a far greater danger.

Our elites, it seems, are content to leave gutsy individuals like Norris to stand up for the freedom at the core of Western civilization."

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/103748279.html?page=3&c=y