Count Garry Trudeau in the “je ne suis pas Charlie” camp. The Doonesbury creator says the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists’ work was rife with “hate speech” and “fanaticism.”
Adding to the insult, Trudeau made that charge while accepting Long Island University’s George Polk award for lifetime achievement in journalism.
He was the first cartoonist to win the honor.
“By attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons,” Trudeau said, “Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech.”
This is obscene.
Four months after Islamist fanatics stormed the Charlie Hebdo offices and brutally murdered 12 employees, Trudeau denounced martyred colleagues who bravely drew to protect his rights — rather than slamming the killers who deprived them of any speech at all.
As The Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway puts it: “This is the free-speech equivalent of suggesting they had it coming because they were wearing short skirts.”
LIU should demand its award back.