"Less smoothing" super-sensitive HuffPollster BHO approval estimate now up 4+ pts since mid-October to 46.8.
— @jbview
ITV News:
The latest edition of Charlie Hebdo will be translated into English, Spanish and Arabic across three million copies, editor-in-chief Gerard Briard said at the start of the conference.
You can see the cover
here.
NY Times:
After the killings at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo last week by Islamist extremists, other news media, including web-based outlets, chose to republish some of its cartoons that many Muslims found so offensive.
Some American newspapers, including The New York Times, did not, calling the decision an editorial judgment. They drew criticism from some free-speech advocates who called the decision cowardly in the face of a terrorist attack.
This week, American newspapers are confronting a variation of that choice: whether to republish the cover-page cartoon of the new Charlie Hebdo print edition, due out Wednesday.
CSM:
As Charlie Hebdo prepares its first post-massacre edition to run Wednesday – with an image of the prophet saying “Je suis Charlie” on the cover – the issue of free speech in an open society remains live.
The unity march in Paris on Sunday with 40 world leaders was a dramatic statement of support for the values of free speech and the rejection of violence, as French President François Hollande made clear.
Yet the Charlie Hebdo tragedy has also evoked new questions about when speech or satire crosses the line from funny or enlightening into provocative, if not hateful, expression – where ugly or racist depictions are promoted under the safeguards of free speech.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Matt Wuerker:
Hustler magazine was not, to say the least, a paragon of journalism, much less a sterling example of the fruits of freedom of speech, but as this case worked its way all the way to the Supreme Court, it became exactly that.
Amicus briefs supporting Hustler were filed by the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists and the Authors League of America.
In the end, the conservative court ruled in favor of the smut peddler and Hustler’s right to raunchily lampoon the religious leader. With an 8-0 ruling, Chief Justice William Rehnquist (once an aspiring cartoonist himself, it turned out) wrote the court’s decision and in it defended the value of cartoons that, in his words, most would find “doubtless gross and repugnant”:
“The art of the cartoonist is often not reasoned or evenhanded, but slashing and one-sided. One cartoonist expressed the nature of the art in these words: ‘The political cartoon is a weapon of attack, of scorn and ridicule and satire; it is least effective when it tries to pat some politician on the back. It is usually as welcome as a bee sting and is always controversial in some quarters.’”
Leigh Phillips:
Lost in translation: Charlie Hebdo, free speech and the unilingual left
The last few days have been a humiliation for the anglophone left, showcasing to the world how poor our ability to translate is these days, as so many people have posted cartoons on social media that they found trawling Google Images as evidence of Charlie Hebdo’s “obvious racism,” only to be told by French speakers how, when translated and put into context, these cartoons actually are explicitly anti-racist or mocking of racists and fascists.
The best example here is the very widely shared cartoon by the slain editor Stéphane Charbonnier, known as Charb, of a black woman’s head on a monkey’s body above the phrase Rassemblement Bleu Raciste (Racist Blue Rally). The French are aware that the woman in the cartoon is the justice minister, Christiane Taubira, and that the red, white and blue flame in the cartoon is the logo of the Front National, which had recently gotten into hot water for publishing a photograph of a baby monkey and the words “At 18 months” next to a picture of Taubira and the word “Now.” The Front National’s slogan is Rassemblement Bleu Marine (Navy Blue Rally), a play on the name of their leader, Marine Le Pen. It is obvious to any French person familiar with the political context that the cartoon is mocking the racism of the Front National and indeed Taubira herself, in the wake of the massacre, has mounted repeated defences of Charlie Hebdo.
Gallup:
Gallup's U.S. Economic Confidence Index continues to show improvement, averaging +4 for the week ending Jan. 11. The index is up from +1 the week before, and is at its highest level since Gallup began tracking it daily in 2008. This is the index's third consecutive positive weekly reading.
Gallup:
Early into the first session of the new 114th Congress, Americans give the legislative body a 16% job approval rating -- matching the December reading of the famously unpopular and divided Congress that preceded it. In contrast to the 113th Congress, Republicans now run both chambers of the national legislature, but so far, there is little evidence that Americans are feeling any warmer about Congress overall. Three-fourths of Americans (76%) disapprove.
David M. Drucker:
Perhaps no one is smiling more about Mitt Romney’s entrance into the presidential sweepstakes than Gov. Scott Walker.
The Wisconsin Republican plans to enter the 2016 contest by mid summer, and Team Walker calculates that a competition between Romney and Jeb Bush for cash and endorsements slows the former Florida governor’s momentum, providing Walker with more room to maneuver. Walker’s supporters also believe that he holds a key advantage over other Republican candidates, particularly the governors.
PolitickerNJ:
As Governor Chris Christie prepares to deliver his fifth State of the State address later today, a divided public assails the heretofore sure-footed Republican governor, with more in New Jersey disapproving of his leadership than approving.
By an even wider margin, more residents say the state is headed down the wrong track, according to this morning’s Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll.
Christie’s approval numbers are upside down and virtually unchanged from October, the last time PublicMind queried voters in the state, according to this morning’s poll.
Thirty-nine percent say they approve of the job he’s doing as governor, and 47 percent say they disapprove. Half (49%) express concern over the direction the state is headed, with just over a third (36%) content with its trajectory. Governor Christie’s approval rating remains low, he’s lost the approval of female voters, and New Jerseyans feel he is focused on becoming president and shirking his gubernatorial duties.
Thomas Edsall:
Can Jeb Bush win the Republican presidential nomination while defying the most ideologically committed wing of his party?
Bill Clinton did this successfully in 1992, when he staked out conservative stands opposed by the liberal wing of his party — the so-called Sister Souljah strategy, designed to distance himself from the dogma of the left generally and from Jesse Jackson specifically.
Over the past 23 years, however, the voting public has become more politically consistent, with the Democratic left and Republican right each exerting greater influence on their respective parties, particularly in primary elections.