You have a point, but I'd still like to bring up the "Why should we care?" card. Rushdie's propoganda only works when muslims decide to "take action." This is really similar to playground politics when you think about it. There's a cunning teacher-friendly bully and there's a normal shareef bacha who doesn't talk much at all. The bully keeps pushing the shareef bacha, when the bacha reacts the bully turns to the teacher and puts the blame on the shareef bacha. Now everyone in the class -except those that knew what really happened- thinks the bacha is the one to blame.
Now replace the bacha with Muslims and the bully with everyone from Salman Rushdie to the people who made the cartoons.
And yes, I do think that if muslims mind their own business, focus on their own faith and religion, instead of getting riled up and falling into traps of these "bullies" it is better for us overall. Besides, Rushdie hasn't been the first or last person to write anti-Islam stuff. There have been ex-imams who converted to atheism who wrote extremely anti-Islam stuff but no one cared about their opinions so they soon faded away. Contrary to what we may believe, the only thing keeping people like Rushdie still active is OUR HATE. Nothing more, nothing less.