Battle lines

The cartoon story of the decade is unfolding overseas, where Danish depictions of the prophet Muhammad ignited a firestorm from Muslims last week. This newspaper declined to publish them, calling them “insensitive” -- which is hard to argue with, because that’s precisely what they were intended to be. Other cartoonists came to their defense without repeating the offense, as in two shown here.

U.S. cartoonists kept up their own holier-than-thou war on the Bush administration, and Tom Toles generated some backlash over here. His depiction of the state of troop readiness didn’t bring armed protests, bomb threats or yogurt boycotts, but it did put the Joint Chiefs’ noses out of joint. In a letter to the Washington Post, the nation’s top military leaders called the cartoon “reprehensible” and “beyond tasteless.” The Post stood firm, and Toles told Editor & Publisher magazine, “I do not believe a fair and careful reader would interpret the cartoon to be making fun of a wounded soldier.”

Battling satire and irony at home, while combating evildoers abroad: Who says the Pentagon can’t fight two wars at once?