I met Bill Hobbs during Justice Sunday II last year and was impressed by his thoughtfulness and dedication to blogging and to his beliefs in faith and country. Those beliefs will hopefully allow Bill to weather his storm, in which he has resigned from his job as a result of a cartoon he posted on his blog. Bill posted a stick figure planting a bomb with the caption, "Mohammed Blows", as a response to the Prophet Cartoon riots and the Iranian Holocaust-cartoon contest. When a politically-connected local reporter wrote a scathing column regarding Bill's cartoon and his support for the Republican Party candidate for governor, Jim Bryson, and his employment at Belmont University. Faster than one can say dhimmitude, Hobbs has been cut off from the Bryson campaign and his job at Belmont.

I can understand why Bryson distanced himself, at least in terms of politics. Why, though, did Belmont feel the need to do so? Hobbs hadn't posted or linked this cartoon to the university, nor did he post it there. He wrote that on his own blog as a private citizen and political activist. Does supporting free speech in Denmark automatically make one ineligible for it at Belmont?

UPDATE: A clarification from Bill Hobbs came by e-mail while I was out doing some Easter shopping this afternoon:

Ed,

I'd like to correct one misimpression people have re the whole cartoon flap.

My blogging has never been "connected" to state Sen. Jim Bryson or his gubernatorial campaign in any way. I recently set up a group blog, with more than a dozen bloggers, called "Bryson for Governor," at http://brysonforgovernor.blogspot.com, but neither the senator nor his campaign had any role in its planning or creation or subsequently.

None.

Thus, the Bryson campaign has not had to "distance" itself from me or that project. The distance is already there. It's an independent blog.

The Democratic sleaze merchant who smeared me over the forgotten and never-publicized cartoon (a cartoon I shouldn't have drawn and have apologized for) lied when he said the cartoon was linked to the pro-Bryson blog, and lied when he implied the blog was created at the behest of or in cooperation/conjunction with the campaign.

Bill

Bill, I'm not sure you needed to apologize for anything. I'm glad to publish this clarification.

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