Here’s a comment I received on one of my earlier posts over the Obama birth certificate nonsense.

The birth issue is only the tip of the iceberg. Obama’s secret agenda will destroy our country as we know it. He must be prosecuted for treason along with the cronies who put him where he is and they number in the thousands. The voting system has to be changed to insure manipulation isn’t possible and those who established the current voting system prosecuted.
Why is Obama traveling to so many countries now? What is he telling those governments behind closed doors? I guarantee you he is selling the United States out!
The truth be told we are in the midst of a new American Revolution instigated by the liberal faction of this country who continue to lie to and steal from the American public. As long as this condition exists the truth will never matter.
Obama must be removed from office NOW one way or the other either by prosecution or other means!

Normally, this is a comment I would choose to ignore as nothing more than radical right-wing extremism.  It’s inflammatory, hate-filled and just plain stupid.  But in light of the violence by right-wing radicals, it points again to the dangerous rhetoric being spouted each day by factions within the conservative movement.

Krugman writes in today’s NYT…

Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.

A couple of points here.  First of all, the report was commissioned by the Bush administration last autumn.  It just happened to come out in Obama’s term.  Secondly, as much as conservatives feigned mock rage at the report, claiming it made all conservatives suspects, the report was clear that it was referring to right-wing extremism.

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.

And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.

Krugman points to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh’s rants as well as conservative paper The Washington Times as prime purveyors of “mainstreaming of right-wing extremism.”  No surprise there.  What is more disturbing are the number of Republican politicians who not only fail to denounce the hate talk but in many instances agree with it.

And when Jon Voight, the actor, told the audience at a Republican fund-raiser this week that the president is a “false prophet” and that “we and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, thanked him, saying that he “really enjoyed” the remarks.

McConnell is not alone.  Republican politicians have been running wild with “Obama is a socialist” chants and at least one who has doubts about the president’s legitimacy.  Krugman sums it up well.

What will the consequences be? Nobody knows, of course, although the analysts at Homeland Security fretted that things may turn out even worse than in the 1990s — that thanks, in part, to the election of an African-American president, “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years.”

And that’s a threat to take seriously. Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril.

Someone needs to assume the Republican leadership and reset the tone for a rational debate over Obama’s policies.  For the time being, all that’s out there are those who feed the fire of hate or remain silent in fear of a Limbaugh tongue lashing if they should dare attempt to reign in the rhetoric.

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