Tiptoe to Destruction (don't want to annoy the neighbors)

Silence that speaks volumes


Diana West is one of the half dozen or so columnists I read regularly. One of the others is Spengler. This is a twofer.

According to his friend, the pope believes there's no way to change Islam because there's no way to reinterpret the Koran — i.e., change Koranic teachings on infidels, women, polygamy, penal codes and other markers of Islamic law — in such a way as to propel Islam into happy coexistence with modernity.
As I said, a bombshell. But this is one bombshell that has yet to explode because no one wants to touch it. Hugh Hewitt posted the extraordinary interview online, a couple of blogs picked it up, and Middle East expert Daniel Pipes wrote a short piece taking exception to it, but, as the Asia Times Online columnist Spengler noted (in a column called "When even the pope has to whisper"), "not a single media outlet has taken notice."
Posting the Spengler column at The Corner at National Review Online, Rod Dreher wrote: "Spengler is amazed by the silence from the Western media over this remarkable statement attributed to the current pope... and he suggests that we shrink from acknowledging it because the consequences of the pope being right about this are too horrible to contemplate." Indeed, with one exception, NRO Corner regulars failed to comment on the pope's putative words—noteworthy, given the magazine's tradition of a Catholic identity.