On a day when we saw more bad news in the Cartoon Wars, we've also finally been treated to some good news: European Muslims Offer Low-Key Response to Cartoons, Danish Imam Condemns Cartoon Violence.

Most importantly, this story that just cleared the AP wire about an hour ago:

The Islamic world is fed up with violence and extremism in the name of religion and is ready for an era of progressive, democratic Muslim governments, former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami said Friday.

Under the current circumstances, these types of gestures are an important first start. We'll have to wait and see whether they lead to real progress or just more of the same.

Another reason for encouragement is this email, sent to me by a reader in response to my column on Wednesday asking where all the moderate Muslims have been for the last five years. Reader AH writes:  

Dear Tom,

I am an American-Muslim. I also am a regular visitor of Realclearpolitics.com. In reference to your opinion about 'Waiting for the Moderate Muslims,' well, we are here. We have been here pre-9/11 too, its just that the media does not find us TV savvy. They do not find moderate and powerful voices of the Muslim community that clearly condemn acts such as cartoon violence, the incessant Bin Laden tapes, and 'honor killings' better than the minority of many of the Muslim countries playing with bombs and fire. Neither do the media realize what impact Muslims are making at a civic engagement standpoint such as steering a Muslim-American Homeland Security Congress, producing a counter-terrorism plan [and have been well before 9/11, yearly], and holding regular meetings with the FBI and other local officials to be 'part' of the solution. Muslims groups such as CAIR and MPAC call for mosque transparency in terms of their bookkeeping/accounting so they do not fall victim of frozen funds from terrorist related suspects. These are just minuscule examples of what we are attempting to accomplish in order to fully integrate into our pluralistic society. Trying to build viable contacts with the government and ensuring the media to look at us with a legitimate and credulous perspective, as you can imagine, is very difficult. Not only has the acts of the cartoon violence inhibited our growth to manifest the Muslim moderate voice, so has the initial publishing of the cartoon itself.

I have no doubt there is a huge media component to this story. Much like the press's  propensity to distort reality in Iraq by constantly broadcasting the latest flames and carnage, it's almost certainly true we are getting a distorted picture of the protests in the Cartoon Wars. They are a small but important sliver of the larger reality.

Lastly, I also received an email from C. Holland Taylor, the CEO of an organization called the Libforall Foundation, who wrote, "We work with moderate Muslim leaders who have not only the courage, but also the influence to combat the spread of Islamist radicalism and affect the outcome of the struggle for the soul of Islam that is raging throughout much of the world." You can visit the Libforall Foundation web site here.