Postpartum
New York's most aggressively vile and unintentionally entertaining tabloid was all over the news last week. The day after Yemeni newsstand operator Nagi Nashal pled guilty to threatening to bomb the circulation offices of the New York Post, the paper's young publisher announced he was moving back to Australia to spend more time with his wife and less time with his father, which makes perfect sense if you've ever seen his wife and father.
One wonders if the two events-angry old Muslim makes threat; rich young Anglo turns tail-weren't somehow related. We're not saying that Lachlan Murdoch was actually frightened out of town by a single empty threat-after a thorough investigation, the NYPD turned up nothing suspicious on Nashal-but it's possible that Murdoch was getting a little skittish about all those angry mujahadeen, many holding U.S. and, now we know, EU passports.
No one has a better understanding of this threat than Prince Lachlan, whose daily has been screaming "Bring 'em on" since 9/11, all too happy to play the role of war-happy trash-talking gutter-media fratboy.
Two covers in particular come to mind. There was the famous "The Arafat Lady Sings," which openly mocked the grieving widow of the Palestinian leader. Then, this past May, the indelible image of Saddam in his cotton briefs was splashed across the cover of not one, but two Murdoch papers-the Post and its equally retarded British cousin, the Sun.
Publishing the Saddam photos was a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which say countries must protect prisoners of war in their custody from "public curiosity." But the real purpose of the cover was simply to exercise the paper's right to be the biggest dick on the news rack. The cover was clearly intended to humiliate and enrage millions of Arabs, including thousands of Arab New Yorkers, the vast majority of whom know that Saddam was a bastard, but are nonetheless disgusted by the double standard that would never allow a naked and flabby war criminal like Henry Kissinger on the cover of an American newspaper.
In the case of pissed-off Nagi Nashal, the Post's plan worked. The Saddam cover was the trigger for Nashal's enraged phone call to the Post's circulation offices on 18th St., in which he said that he was "very upset" and asked, "How can you do this to my people?" before making the inopportune remark that he would "come down there and blow up the building." Prosecutors say Nashal will likely spend six months in prison.
Whether or not an otherwise harmless fellow like Nashal deserves half a year in the clink for losing his cool, it's worth noting that the New York Post has no problem publishing threats made by its op-ed rotation of barking fools (O'Reilly, Krauthammer) and drooling ones (Podhoretz, Peyser).
O'Reilly in particular enjoys spitting violent threats, for which it's a fair bet he'll never be sent to prison. He has in the past urged consideration of nuking more than one Middle Eastern country, and declared that eating sand would be a good hobby for Libyans to take up. Just last week, the regular Post contributor had this to say on his radio show:
"The Brits' really inspirational response to the terror bombings is great. Very admirable. I just love the way the Brit cops ran down that guy on the subway, tackled him, and shot him dead? Not all the information is in, but it will be especially important that the dead man turns out to be connected to the terror cell."
The question is not why Nagi Nashal called up the Post in a screaming rage. The question is: Why haven't we all?