"History is like a constantly changing tree."

Said British historian David Irving, as he faced sentencing in Austria for Holocaust denial. He also said, "I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz." That's not the same as saying my statements were incorrect. And these were the remarks of a man coerced by the threat of 10 years in prison. He got 3.

Irving's trial comes amid new -- and fierce -- debate over freedom of expression in Europe, where the printing and reprinting of unflattering cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad has triggered violent protests worldwide.

The hypocrisy about free speech is overwhelming. Even if you decide to go the repressive way of punishing some speech because it wounds some and stimulates others to violence, you should at least have a neutral rule defining the proscribed speech.

So "History is like a constantly changing tree"? What does that mean? It sounds like the coded statement of a man who is standing by his version of the truth and acknowledging that other truth, that the victors write the history books.

I wonder how the history books would read on the cartoons story if, by some crazy chance, fascistic Islamists win World War IV.