The best concise commentary I've seen yet on the Mohammed cartoon battle comes from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. I recommend the whole thing, here's a couple key points.
The price of blasphemy is death. And among many in the Muslim world it is not sufficient that those rules apply in their countries. They should apply everywhere. European governments are supposed to clamp down on their presses to heal the breach.
So liberal mores versus theocratic mores. Where's the possible compromise? There isn't any. On the face of it this gets portrayed as an issue of press freedom. But this is much more fundamental. 'Press freedom' is just one cog in the machinery of a society that doesn't believe in or accept the idea of 'blasphemy'.
I know not all Muslims embrace these views. More to the point, it's not only Muslims who do. You see it among the haredim in Israel. And I see it with an increasing frequency here in the US. Is it just me or does it seem that more and more often there are public controversies in which 'blasphemy' is considered some sort of legitimate cause of action - as if 'blasphemy' can actually have any civic meaning in a society like ours.
And there you have Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays, the Ten Commandments on the Courthouse Lawn, school prayer, choice and Terry Schaivo all summed up in one word: "blasphemy."
Sometimes I reduce the choice controversy to "if you don't like abortion don't have one." That's a deliberate missing of the point: theocrats of all stripes reject the concept of "I agree to disagree." They believe they have access to absolute truth and all others are literally damned; thus rational discourse is impossible.
I debated whether or not to illustrate this with one of the cartoons. In the end I decided just to give you a link.
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