A big story for our little town

It's one thing for the DI's cartoon story to get picked up my Malkin and other bloggers. It's another for it to get picked up by the NY Times.

TheSquire has another blog entry on the cartoons, and links to an interview where Acton claims the reason he was suspended was that the other editors are afraid for their lives:

[Interviewer]: No, but I mean, has anyone told you that's the reason they're upset, fear of reprisal?

[Gorton]: Well, not that specifically, but that has been voiced to me by quite a few people, yeah. I had a staff meeting on Monday, and pretty much my entire newsroom was there, and that was one of the major things that was brought up.

I'm really hoping that he's blowing this out of proportion. The editors actually, seriously, afraid for their lives because of this publication? This isn't the Middle East. Heck, it isn't even Demark, and the offices of the Danish paper that ran the cartoons hasn't even been bombed.

I still want to know why this major news story was run on the Op-Ed page.