The RINO (reverend in name only) Terry Jones is like his fellow RINO, Fred Phelps, but in political drag.

Jones, the "pastor" (PINO?) of the tiny and inconsequential Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., was jailed last week in Dearborn, Mich., "following a jury trial that found he was likely to create a 'breach of the peace' for plans to protest outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn," according to the Detroit News. Jones and his associate Wayne Sapp were taken into custody after they refused to post a $1 "peace bond." A judge then barred Jones and Sapp from entering the property of the Islamic Center -- the largest mosque in the U.S. -- for three years. The two posted bond and were released, but they promised to return on Friday.

Burning a copy of the Koran is morally equivalent to flying a plane into the World Trade Center and equally eternally damnable.

That's essentially the fatwa of Time magazine's Joe Klein in an April 1 blog post at the magazine's Swampland blog.

Klein was condemning Florida pastor Terry Jones's "trial" and subsequent burning of a Koran which allegedly have sparked a murderous rampage against UN workers in Afghanistan last week:

[T]here should be no confusion about this: Jones's act was murderous as any suicide bomber's. If there is a hell, he's just guaranteed himself an afterlifetime membership.

One has to wonder if Klein would say the same thing about a taxpayer-funded artist who photographed a crucifix soaked in a jar of urine or portrayed the Virgin Mary in elephant dung.

UPDATE (9/30 - 1:13 pm): The Society of Professional Journalists emailed me requesting a correction. Clarification - though no correction - below the fold. 

When American religious leaders spoke out against the planned burning of Korans by a crazy Florida pastor, it was a hot news item. Likewise, when another group of clergy condemned the supposed "anti-Muslim frenzy" in the United States, the media ate it up.

But when, on Tuesday, scores of prominent American and Canadian Muslims spoke out against "threats that have been made against individual writers, cartoonists, and others by a minority of Muslims" with the express purpose of silencing speech, the media was conspicuously silent. It remains so today.

"We, the undersigned," declares a petition at the website of The American Muslim, "unconditionally condemn any intimidation or threats of violence directed against any individual or group exercising the rights of freedom of religion and speech; even when that speech may be perceived as hurtful or reprehensible."

The media's response: yawn.

Not how I'd mark an anniversary, but MSNBC is flexible in its alleged standards.

On Sept. 8, Rachel Maddow told viewers it was two years since her cable show started on MSNBC. And what better way to enter her third year of televised liberal polemics than with Maddow's trademark melding of smarm and deceit. 

The following night, Maddow railed at Newt Gingrich and Citizens United for producing and marketing a documentary warning Americans of the threat from radical Islam, after she complained about Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck charging admission to a meet-and-greet on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks (first of four parts in embedded video) --