Yale University Press isn’t the only publisher to go squishy over cartoons deemed offensive to some. Newsday now says it regrets publishing a recent Mallard Fillmore comic strip that criticized — can you imagine? — the concept of hate crimes. Start your journey by taking a peek at the comic strip itself. Then read about the hysterical overreaction. Next, learn about Newsday’s groveling apology:

There’s nothing funny about hate crimes. … Should Newsday have declined to publish Sunday’s strip? Yes. Not because of Tinsley’s politics but because of the insensitivity and poor taste the cartoonist exhibited in using the words “hate crime” as a punch line.

Except that Tinsley wasn’t saying hate crimes were funny. Here’s how he explained the comic strip:

“The point my cartoon made was that the animus behind a crime matters far less (or sometimes, not at all) than does the real violence done to a real person or people, and that a ‘hate-crime’ mindset often trivializes that very violence by subordinating it to a political agenda.
“Even the ACLU has expressed concern over some versions of the recent hate crimes legislation introduced in Congress. Most 1st Amendment advocates, especially journalists, are often concerned about punishing the thought, not the action.

This viewpoint is apparently beyond the pale in some liberal newsrooms. Mallard Fillmore will of course soldier on. Here’s the story I wrote a few months ago for NRODT about Tinsley and his cartoon duck.