Finally, a major liberal American publication takes the plunge and dares to print the Mohammed Cartoons in full. Better late than never (the conservative Weekly Standard published the cartoons in its Feb. 20, 2006 issue). Hat tip: reader O., who read about the story via Danish TV 2 Nyhederne.

Controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have been reprinted in a U.S. magazine with commentary by leading American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who offers what he calls a “fatwa bomb meter” to rate their offensiveness.

Harper’s Magazine published the article by Spiegelman in its June edition, available on newsstands Tuesday. It joins only a handful of U.S. outlets that have printed the cartoons, which provoked furious protests that killed 50 people.

Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten newspaper published the 12 cartoons last year. Other papers, mainly in Europe, later reprinted the cartoons.

A number of Muslim clerics have condemned the cartoons and a small minority have called for a violent response. A fatwa is a religious edict in Islam, sometimes equated with a death threat.

Spiegelman, an elder statesman of political satire famous for his New Yorker cartoons, said the cartoons needed to be seen to be understood.

“As a secular Jewish cartoonist living in New York City, I start out with four strikes against me, but I really don’t want any irate Muslims declaring holy war on me,” Spiegelman wrote in his commentary.

“It’s not intended to add fuel to any fire,” Spiegelman told Reuters, describing himself as “a devout coward.”

“I wanted to show … what couldn’t be described,” he said, adding that he was surprised that most of his friends had not seen the cartoons.

Perhaps in order to maintain his street cred as an American leftist, Spiegelman takes a specious swipe at the Jyllands-Posten for taking its pioneering stand against dhimmitude in Europe:

“The Jyllands-Posten — a newspaper with a history of anti-immigrant bias — seemed somewhat disingenuous when it wrapped itself in the mantle of free speech to invite cartoonists to throw pies at the face of Muhammad,” Spiegelman wrote.

The paper did no such thing, and Spiegelman should be embarrassed to have smeared them.

Still, the magazine must be commended–loudly and strongly–for doing what few American media outlets will do.

Will major bookstores carry the magazine?

Watch closely.

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More from Reuters, in an interview which further showcases Spiegelman’s unfortunate moonbat views:

Spiegelman noted that the cartoons appear “banal and inoffensive” to secular eyes, revealing a gulf in understanding.

So far so good. But:

“To my secular eyes it seems like the real insult has been things like Abu Ghraib,” he said, referring to abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

No, the real travesty is left-wing refusal to comprehend the Islamic threat that predates the Crusades and runs through 9/11, Bali, Madrid, London, nuclear Iran, and the insane murders of 50 people by jihadists over a bunch of damned cartoons.

Spiegelman is at least right about this much:

He criticized U.S. news outlets for not showing the cartoons out of what he called “political correctness that smelled of hypocrisy and fear.”

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Related:

The heckler’s veto
Sharia at Borders
American newspapers, will you please stand up?
In search of a brave American newspaper
The Mohammed Cartoon Blogburst