Boo

Three essential paragraphs from today's Eugene Robinson regarding yesterday's "Hutaree" arrests:

The episode highlights the obvious: For decades now, the most serious threat of domestic terrorism has come from the growing ranks of paranoid, anti-government hate groups that draw their inspiration, vocabulary and anger from the far right. It is disingenuous for mainstream purveyors of incendiary far-right rhetoric to dismiss groups such as the Hutaree by saying that there are "crazies on both sides." This simply is not true. ... It is dishonest for right-wing commentators to insist on an equivalence that does not exist. The danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction—the right, not the left. The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day—and, quite regularly, at Tea Party rallies—is calibrated not to inform but to incite.

It is stunning, absolutely stunning, to hear Prudence Palin out-and-out deny the straight line that exists between her rhetoric since the summer of 2008 and the violent atmosphere in which we live today. I will go on out and say it: The responsibility for this condition rests almost solely on the shoulders of one Prudence Palin. Every time this horrific woman comes to the table with some baseless yet terror-inducing charge, "Obama consorts with terrorists," "Obama wants 'death panels,'" every time she does this, it's a call to arms for some bunch of troglodytes or another. Robinson does not even mention terrorism on the behalf of those who oppose a woman's right to choose. All of the following people have been convicted of a violent crime against providers of the safe and legal procedure in these Untied States of America known as abortion: Michael Griffin, Paul Hill, John Salvi, Eric Rudolph, James Kopp, Shelley Shannon, Matt Goldsby, Jimmy Simmons, Kathy Simmons, Kaye Wiggins, and, of course, Scott Roeder, among others. Talk about a crowd that "pals around" with terrorists.