Gawker is usually full of silly shit but I found this take on Charlie Hebdo:

I too am a free-speech advocate, and am therefore in favor of people spewing absolutely the most heinous bullshit, if they must. It’s a relief, however, to see people realizing that lot of the stuff that Charlie Hebdo published was really gross and racist. The massacre took place against the backdrop of an ugly strain of xenophobia in France, and the rise of Marine Le Pen, who represents a faction substantially worse in its virulent racism even than our most rabid right-wing partisans. It will be terrible if this massacre results in any kind of traction for Le Pen’s National Front (founded by her dad, the truly repulsive bigot, anti-Semite and Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen, and I still can’t believe a real political party can even be called that). Such a result would be diametrically against the avowed leftist politics (such as they were) of Charlie Hebdo.

Marine Le Pen’s party is a party of hate. And Charlie Hebdo—however legitimate its position about free speech, however much the staff may have styled themselves freewheeling leftists—trafficked in hateful images and ideas that often tracked uncomfortably closely with the ultragarbage peddled by the fascistoid National Front.

I want the Charlies Hebdo of the world to say every revolting thing they want to say. But here is the exercise of my own free speech: Those guys were gross. Fanning the flames of xenophobia at a time of increased violence against Muslims and their places of worship is stupid. Not because it endangered the writers of Charlie Hebdo!—it was their look-out, if they thought these things needed saying—but because it endangered innocent Frenchmen working abroad and made it harder to fight the very grave problem of xenophobia at home. Because a bunch of idiots would be like, trs trs drle, it’s so funny to hate Mohammed (mdr)! Surely journalists should at least try to take some responsibility for how bigoted, ignorant people are going to “take the joke.”