Muslims aren't against Christians, says Ahmadinejad; no response from Molly Norris

Two of these headlines don't go together:


Molly Norris, the (now formerly) Seattle-based political cartoonist who caused a furore with her proposed and then retracted "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day," has gone ghost -- not exactly "witness protection," since it's not a court case, but the same sort of deal with assistance from the FBI. In a move that the FBI naturally can't comment on, Norris has had to give up her life, job, and identity and move somewhere else and live as a different person because an American-born Islamic cleric in Yemen has put her on a hit list. "Her proper abode," says smiling fanatic Anwar al-Awlaki, "is hellfire." In response, her editor at the Seattle Weekly has announced that "there is no more Molly."

Score one for religious fundamentalism.

On the same front page yet elsewhere in the Middle East, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has proclaimed that Muslims don't actually hate Americans:

People (in Islamic countries) are against that ugly behavior [of burning Korans, or drawing Mohammed.] They are not against the people of the United States. They are not against Americans, they are not against Jews. They are not against Christians or Christianity.

If you can reconcile the two stories here, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.