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Hard to believe it's been two years since the world and the blogosphere exploded over 12 cartoons depicting Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. Yet the controversy never really went away. With news that Danish police yesterday arrested several men allegedly plotting to kill one of the cartoonists, the Western media have a chance to get the story right this time.

For starters, every newspaper in Europe and the United States should follow the lead of their Danish colleagues and reprint the cartoons. Why? Because they're news, that's why! Readers should see for themselves what the controversy is about. It's indispensable context for the story. And most people, I think, would be surprised at what gets you marked for death nowadays.

But there is also a higher principle at stake, a principle that most mainstream media outlets either ignored or tried to downplay last time. As Mark Steyn observes, "The minute it became clear that violence and intimidation were the response, the western press should have said: Okay, you want to kill one of us, you'll have to kill us all. The Danes have now taken an important stand against Islamic encroachments on freedom of expression."

Freedom of speech and expression is under attack in ways not always visible to Americans. During the first "cartoon jihad," I wrote an editorial for the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California, that made what should be an absurdly obvious point: "Irreverence is not a crime." But the editorial was necessary because, "Europe's answer to the furor surrounding 12 Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad is to declare support for freedom of expression while drawing up new measures to restrict press freedom." The conclusion: "Nothing could be more antithetical to liberty. The correct response is to redouble the West's devotion to free thought and expression, not to negotiate terms of surrender."

Now's the chance to double down.