La Fallaci - A prophet of decline passes from the scene.

opinionjournal- wall street journal ^ | Saturday, September 16, 2006 12:01 | TUNKU VARADARAJAN

[dennisw]

NEW YORK--Even as Oriana Fallaci breathed her last through lungs marinaded in enough nicotine to sink a ship (leave alone a birdlike creature who weighed no more than 80 pounds at best, pearl necklace included), protests rumbled in the Muslim world over a recent utterance by Pope Benedict XVI in which he faulted the prophet, Muhammad, for exhorting his followers to spread Islam by the sword. Effigies of the pope have been torched by mobs, although the irruption has also included unintended drollery; a spokeswoman for the Musharraf dispensation in Pakistan observed yesterday that "anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence."

Once more, the West has collided with the Muslim world; and once more, it is the West that is scrambling to soothe "the hurt." Already, the Vatican has issued a statement that "it was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father to . . . offend sensibilities of Muslim faithful." Everyone, on tenterhooks, now waits to see if the pope himself will apologize (although the quote in question is something even the silkiest apologizer couldn't possibly get around). So it is tempting to believe that, on Thursday night, Ms. Fallaci--peering through her hospital window at this latest circus of pieties and outrage--simply said to herself, "I really can't take this any longer. I'm outta here."

Oriana Fallaci was the toughest nut, the primordial female ballbuster journalist. Her reputation was made through a series of innovatively intrusive, relentlessly probing interviews, in which she took on--and bested--some of the most prominent male politicians of the last third of the 20th century. She was not always the nicest gal, as I found in my experience as her editor for two monumental op-ed pieces that she wrote for this page in 2003 (they appear here and here). .

[dennisw]

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Her work, "The rage and the Pride", is a must read for those who still have doubts about the basis of today's world war with fascist Islam.

[Cicero]

"In the speech I gave at the Italian consulate in New York to accept one of the four golden medals I have received in the last two months, I told that I had drawn a cartoon on the Prophet and his nine wives including the 9 year old one and his sixteen concubines including the she-camel. But I had not published it because I had not been able to draw well the she-camel. (True). The author of the booklet which asks the Moslems to eliminate me in accord with four Suras of the Koran even sued me . . . Meaning now in Italy they even appeal to the Italian law to incriminate an Italian citizen for a 'vilifying' cartoon that nobody has seen."

Viva la Fallaci. She will continue to poke at them even from the grave.

[GBA]

"The moment you give up your principles, and your values . . . the moment you laugh at those principles, and those values, you are dead, your culture is dead, your civilization is dead. Period."

Sounds like she was describing our "friends" in the Democrat party. Apparently, liberals are the same everywhere and do similar damage.

[My2Cents]

"it was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father to . . . offend sensibilities of Muslim faithful."

These people are easily offended.

Their religion gets criticized for encouraging violence, and look at the response...They get violent.

[Old Professer]

So, at 76, the Marlboro Man did what all the jihadists could not?

[dennisw]

She smoked way too much but lived long enough