Stefan has already criticized Michael Fancher's decision to duck publishing the Danish cartoons here.  What I find interesting about the decision is that it marks a major change in policy at the Seattle Times.   If, before any picture, article, column, or editorial is published, the Times must establish that readers will not be offended, then the newspaper will look far different in the future.

And they are going to have to get rid of some of their employees.  For instance, a few years ago the book editor published a piece in which someone recommended a fancy copy of the Marquis de Sade as a Christmas present.  Obviously that would offend many Christians (and perhaps some Muslims as well).  So that book editor will have to go.  Within the last year an editorial writer at the Times compared our prisons for terrorists to Stalin's Gulag.  That would deeply offend anyone who suffered under Stalin and most of those who know even a little of the history of the Gulag.

Those who read this site regularly will be able to think of reasons that Lance Dickie and Joni Balter will have to go.  Certainly both have offended many readers.  (I'll miss Ms. Balter a little, but not Mr. Dickie.)  Columnist Nicole Brodeur admits that she has offended many readers, so she's out, too.

And then there is the editor who published, on the front page, a picture of coffins of American servicemen.  I may be wrong, but I believe it was Mr. Fancher himself who made that editorial decision.  There is absolutely no doubt that publishing it offended many readers, so that editor will definitely have to go.

So, who else will have to leave the Times under this new policy?  And is there anyone currently writing for the Times who will stay?  If you like, use the comments below to predict who will stay and who will go under this new policy.

(Some cruel people have suggested that it is not respect for the readers that explains these decisions not to publish the cartoons, but fear.  They have even made that charge in some minor newspapers, believe it or not.  Here, for example, is what Andrew Sullivan had to say in the Times of London.

The reasons given are conventional enough: the press doesn't want to inflame matters further; the cartoons are indeed offensive, and no editor has to publish images that would appal readers; reprinting would merely play into the hands of extremists, and so on.  The one argument you haven't heard is the one you hear off-camera.  Many editors simply don't want to put their staffs at risk of physical danger.

And here is what Tim Rutten says, in another minor newspaper, the Los Angeles Times.

Among those who decline to show the caricatures, only one, the Boston Phoenix, has been forthright enough to admit that its editors made the decision "out of fear of retaliation from the international brotherhood of radical and bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do.  This is, frankly, our primary reason for not publishing any of the images in question.   Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and as deeply as we believe in the principles of free speech and a free press, we could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy.".

There is something wonderfully clarifying about honesty.

And I must confess that I have made similar arguments myself, for example in this January post, where I discussed what I call the "assassin's veto" on free speech.)