The opera thing? Yeah, you can forget that.

The American Prospect has an afterthought of a post over the German opera incident-- the episode that inspired countless outraged right-wing blog posts decrying the threat Muslims pose to nice things like free speech and democracy... and one New Republic column about how serious the threat was, and how liberals were ignoring it at their own peril. Guess what? It was all over nothing.

According to Bloomberg, "The police have since said that they received no concrete threat." Oh. So free speech now quakes before phantom threats? Indeed, interior secretary Ehrhart Koerting, the official who asked the opera director to cancel the show in the first place, now admits that he made a "mistake," and was "worrying too much about security."

So let's get the facts straight: Working off no specific threat of any type, the interior minister feared Muslim backlash and asked an opera director to cancel a production. The political and media establishments mocked and opposed the decision, the interior secretary admitted he was overreacting, and the opera is likely back on for December.

That won't stop the righties from screaming their heads off about 'Islamofascism,' lily-livered Europeans and the other usual crap, but it could be just the lesson TNR staffers need to help them rethink which side of the blogosphere is home to looney ideologues. Heh heh. Just kidding.