Ezra Levant, publisher of the Western Standard, defended his decision to print the controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoons and blasted other media outlets for timidity.

Some excerpts from Toronto Star story:

The publisher of the Western Standard blasted the rest of the Canadian media for not publishing the controversial Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, accusing them of abdicating their responsibility to uphold freedom of the press during a speech in Toronto Tuesday.

"It is not the duty of a publisher to publish these cartoons, but what disturbed me so much was the...obviously false explanation from people who should know better," Ezra Levant said. "I think there was a combination of fear and political correctness."

Speaking to about 50 people at the Toronto office of the Fraser Institute, a right-wing think tank, Levant defended his decision to run eight of the 12 cartoons in the Feb. 27 issue of the Western Standard. The Calgary-based weekly newsmagazine was the only major publication to reprint the contentious illustrations, which also ran in some campus newspapers and the Jewish Free Press.

The Western Standard decided to run the cartoons, which sparked riots across the Muslim world due to their controversial depictions of the Prophet, because its editorial team felt Canadians deserved to see the images for themselves and no other major Canadian media outlet wanted to publish them, Levant said.

"With all their wealth and power, they were too timid to do it - they had to get bloggers to do it for them," Levant said. "I think that is the epitaph of the mainstream media."

Levant dismissed the idea that media did not reprint the drawings to avoid further offending Canadian Muslims (some Muslims believe that any depictions of Muhammad are prohibited).

The story quoted a fellow named Tariq Ahmed of the Ahmediyya Muslim Students Association at Rye High as saying (in part):

"... I think it's a publicity stunt. Western Standard, which is not such a big media source, (by running the cartoons) everyone's going to pick it up and they're going to get headlines across the country. I think they're not doing their duty as citizens to respect their fellow Canadians."

I don't doubt for a moment that the Standard saw this as a publicity trick as much as anything. But as Levant has said, they also wanted to show that the cartoons were relatively innocuous. Most of them aren't that offensive unless you hold the view that the Prophet Muhammad is above all criticism.

And again, if they intended to offend, that's the Standard's right. In return, Ahmed and others have the right to peaceably denounce the Standard, to not buy the magazine and to organize boycotts of those who agitate in it.

But people who say that one must never offend, I don't agree.