An outrageous crime in Afghanistan produced an outrageous headline in the New York Times. AFGHANS AVENGE KORAN BURNING; PROTEST KILLS 12, proclaimed America’s so-called “Journal of Record,” suggesting that a frenzied mob storming UN headquarters to murder aid workers somehow achieved appropriate vengeance for a stupid gesture by a Florida pastor of a tiny fringe church.

In its reporting, the Times expressed more disapproval of the clergyman who burned one copy of the Koran in front of thirty people than of Muslim leaders who urged crowds in their mosques to murder people in response, promising more killing unless President Obama arrested and punished the pastor. Militant Islam and the US liberal establishment share an apparent willingness to treat beating human beings to death as apt response to a disrespectful publicity stunt on the other side of the world.