Just asking . . . . .

Directly above is the cover of this Friday's number of Rolling Stone magazine. And, yes, that is the modestly talented and extremely silly Kanye West as Jesus Christ. We provide no links to comment, outrage, explanation, or discussions of the First Amendment, leaving such research as an exercise for our readers.

But we do have a question:

What point is Mr. West trying to make?

And if the answer to this first question is that Mr. West intended to show his fearlessness, his willingness to break the bounds of contemporary culture, to demonstrate that he is oblivious to danger, invulnerable to intimidation, then we have another question:

Why didn't he -- and the editors of Rolling Stone -- choose instead to have him depicted as Moses? or Muhammed?

Just asking.

[UPDATE -- 9:45 a.m.] We see that Glenn Reynolds and Jonah Goldberg have posed the same question. Professor Reynolds speculates that it is because Mr. West is without balls. We suppose that might explain it. Mr. Goldberg notes more circumspectly that dressing up as Muhammed "at least would take some guts." Just so.