Pope apologizes, Muslims still pissed, and I'm not surprised

I've largely stayed away from the "Pope quotes a medieval text, Muslims get offended" imbroglio, as I have thought since the story broke that it was a ridiculous waste of time. However, as with many seemingly trivial things which involve the Muslim world, it just won't go away.

The latest is Pope Benedict's apology for offending Muslims by quoting something that was written 1000 years ago and which he specifically said (at the time and about 100 times since) did not reflect his own views.

Predictably, Muslim leaders who have been demanding an apology are not satisfied. They want the Pope to apologize for quoting the text, rather than for offending Muslims. It seems like splitting hairs to me, but apparently not to them. Riots in the streets of the Islamic world, followed by screaming protests in Western capitals, would not surprise me one bit.

The double standard and hypocrisy in the Muslim world is enough to gag a brontosaurus. The Iranians hold a Holocaust cartoon show, and you hear NOTHING from Muslim leaders. The Pope says something that takes a lot of creative thinking to turn into an offensive statement, apologizes, and they're still pissed.

Muslims (at least some) feel the West is "anti-Islam" and the War on Terror is, in fact, a War on Islam. While I disagree with both statements in the strongest possible terms, hypocritical acts like this one make it awfully difficult for the average guy in the West to feel much compassion for Islam.

UPDATE 9/18/2006 11:46 CT: Yep, here we go. I think this is called "being unreasonable".