The Danish Cartoon Crisis has reached new heights as the BBC became the first British news outlet to lift the veil from cartoons showing Mohammed. While Muslims sound ready to riot in Gaza, the Palestinian territories, the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia and Iran, the European media are holding fairly steady. True, the editor of France Soir was fired after publishing the Danish cartoons, but apparently Denmark is not yielding to intimidation. Norway sounds pretty weak in the knees, but there's nothing its government could do but apologize abjectly to any Muslims in sight.

Obviously millions of people have been reading the cartoons on the web, with no known actual casualties from divine retribution.

But not in the British Isles. No British reader or viewer has seen the blasphemous pictures, unless they surf the web.

As the Guardian just wrote, before the BBC decided to broadcast the cartoons yesterday,

"No British news organisation had previously shown the cartoons, which were first printed back in September in the Danish newspaper Jyllands—Posten. They include a picture of a bearded Muhammad with a bomb fizzing out of his turban."

How's that for self—censorship?

So what are the Brits newsies waiting for? This is absolutely scandalous! What would Churchill say? Thatcher? What would even Mr. Bean say?  Here is a whole nation that prides itself on freedom of speech, and not a single news outfit is willing to challenge the Islamic holy rollers trying to censor news around the world. These are the same folks who constantly moan about devout Christians, as if they are heroically standing up to Mormons and Baptists chasing after journalists with bloody knives. When it comes to standing for their vaunted principles in the face of throw—back fanatics straight out of the Dark Ages, they are nowhere to be found.

Including ... the Guardian itself, which hasn't published the cartoons either. So much for the British Bible of the Left; today it is showing a new—found respect for religious sensitivies. Amazing.

Malcolm Muggeridge used to work as Moscow correspondent for the Guardian in the 1930s, when (as the Manchester Guardian), it simply censored reports of Stalin's depredations. I've always thought that was a kind of low point in the annals of human shame. But maybe the real reason for the Guardian's Political Correctness, then and now, is that they knew that Uncle Joe was a scary guy. The Guardian doesn't provoke real dictators and terrorists. All its venom is reserved for leaders of democratic countries.

So maybe the last five years of the Guardian's eye—popping rage at the United States and Tony Blair was all for show. The Left's outbursts seem to come down to simple fear: Not of Bush or Blair, who respect free speech, but fear of Saddam and Al Qaida, who don't.

Well, it's nice to know.