(5)  Journalists who piss off the right wing blogosphere are accused of treason, their home addresses and phone numbers publicized, and people are encouraged to harass them, including strongly implied threats of violence.  They are also subject to intensive scrutiny of their past work and anything that might possibly be viewed as questionable is held up as a crime against truth, justice, and the American way, requiring them to spend time defending themselves instead of reporting.

You're a fool to complain about this.  The MSM will naturally make you the source of this quote; you'll be seen as a liberal terrorist.

Haven't you learned?  EVERTHING they blame us for is what they do.  They are traitors, they are in control of the government, they are in control of the media, they are liars, they are responsible for more ills in our society and the world than I can mention.  

But, it all our fault!  The genius of Karl Rove has finally given us, "I am rubber you are glue, everything I say bounces of me and sticks to you."

If you don't really care, why devote 900 words to the wagonload of monkeys?

If

the right-wing netroots will remain generally marginal, out-of-sight, and repetitive.

There are enough genuine things in politics to give yourself an ulcer about - why get worked up over trivia?

The wingnuts have been whining about the "victim culture" for years.  Like everything else, it is projection.

I think most of what you wrote is on point, except for one major missing piece.  The conservative movement uses blogs to try out fringe rhetoric (like lynching Supreme Court Justices, and using violence against political opponents), and I don't think the point is ultimately to get those ideas into traditional media.  The point is to fan the flames of anger and victimhood, so that politicians can feed off those emotions with coded language in the future.

It's similar in many ways to the dog-whistle politics that has evolved around the abortion debate: the anti-abortion crowd likens Roe to the Dredd Scott decision over and over again; so when Bush says that he's opposed to decisions like Dredd Scott, most of the country thinks it's a sort of anachronistic but largely harmless comment, while the anti-abortion folks get their red meat.

You are right in the sense that this is really more of the same: in serving this purpose the right wing bloggers are no different than the right wing radio talk show hosts.

What is new is that all of it's on record and easy to reproduce.  It seems to me like a relatively easy matter to tie right-wing politicians to this kind of fringe rhetoric.  Would it be effective, for example, if Claire McCaskill were to challenge Jim Talent to disavow these lunatics and their ideas?  It seems to have worked somewhat well in early 2004, when Democrats from Kerry on down were pushed to disavow Kos and MoveOn for purportedly extreme rhetoric.

What if the criticism doesn't come from candidates, but from activists, writing letters to the editor and that sort of thing?  Would it be possible to tie, for example, the Heritage and Manhattan Institutes to these nut jobs, and pester newspapers every time they cite a study by one of these institutions?  It's worth a shot, and it's an effort which would have comparatively few risks.

Hey, why not send this along as a hot news tip to the jounralists who have been dogpiling on the left blogosphere lately?

It should probablly be sent to the secret service or whoever projects the justices. Any move by them to investigate would make it a real story.

Probably won't get covered, but it can't hurt.

Just as it was convenient for racists of both parties to tolerate the Klan and violent bigots throughout the bulk of the 20th century, it's convenient for the anti-democratic (small "d") elements in the Republican party to tolerate these people. By ignoring it, not condemning it, and not drawing attention to it themselves, they legitimize the actions of the extremists and make themselves appear as a reasonable alternative.

the hardly-ever-right wing blogger penchant for victimization is even worse than you describe it, chris.

said unknown lefty blogger did not threaten siad mid-level righty blogger, nor even threaten said righty blogger's child.

she did go way over the line in his comments section, stating (and i have trouble following this logic) that since said righty blogger lives in colorado, he'd better hope something doesn't happen to his kid like what happened to jon benet ramsey.

she also, in response to other commenters talking about her body parts, demanded that the conversation be directed to the body parts of jeff's "tyke," tho beyond the demand for that, she didn't actually partake.

she said if she learned someone had shot jeff and his "tyke" she wouldn't lose one "iota" of sleep.

granted, she was over the top, over the line, beyond the pale, out of bounds, and has enough issues to start her own magazine.

but she never threatened him. not even in a metaphorical way, like the rottweiler does to the supremes.

even worse, now a hardly-ever-right wing blog has characterized skippy (because we dismissed the whole fiasco) as, along with frisch, wishing children were dead.

Ouch.  Nice piece.

Chris,
When you say, "The political and media establishment doesn't care about the right-wing blogosphere," I don't get it.  They love the right-wing bloggers.  Hinderaker and Hewitt have no problem getting on TV.  Lucianne's Fat Kid has his LA Times op-ed column.  Glenn Reynolds gets periodic media play.

Besides, the right-wing bloggers and what they say are part of a continuum; what they say isn't that much different from what the conservative commentators say who do get TV time.  It was Michael Reagan who said that Howard Dean should be hanged, and Melanie Morgan wanted NYT's Bill Keller gassed.

Earlier today, I wrote Deborah Howell, the official WaPo Apologist, and asked her where the "Angry Right" piece was.  I think it's important to let the American people know just what is under those rocks.  

The MSM causes people to think badly of us because we use "wanker" and "asshole" a lot (plus the occasional 'fuck', of course); I think that if moderate/independent voters knew there was a critical mass of 'movement' conservative commentators who advocated the killing of editors, politicians, and Supreme Court justices, they would be revolted at the prospect of being on the same side as these people.

Just as the Oklahoma City bombings woke up mainstream America to the evil in their midst then, a few mainstream media pieces about the rising right-wing advocacy of death to political enemies would do the same thing now.  Without anyone getting killed first.

People who spend more time commenting than blogging, and get very few people actually visiting their blog, are still first and foremost Bloggers.  There are about a zillion blogs out there, and roughly 0.5 zillion of them are of the liberal persuasion.  In fact, there is a 99.4% chance that if you consider yourself liberal, you are a Liberal Blogger.

There are some exceptions to this, of course.  I, for instance, do 20 minutes of aerobic exercise twice a week. This puts me squarely in the category of World Class Athlete.

The article talks about the violence called for in the wingnut blogs. The talk show hosts on the right are just as bad and I've got audio clips!. Here are a few from KSFO. Home of Melanie Morgan, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and my personal unfavorite, Brian Sussman.

This first clip is dedicated to Tom Tommorrow's penguin friend Sparky. Listen to Ms. Morgan's co-hosts imitate the sounds of Bill Keller in the electric chair "Ol' Sparky"
http://s88172659.onlinehome.us/MelanieMo rganBrianSussmanOfficerVicKSFO07102006H0 8M06.wma

Here is one from Ms. Morgan calling for the editors who wrote the story about the finanical tracking program to be hanged. Note: There are no qualifications for a trial or conviction, just "Hang 'em!"

http://s88172659.onlinehome.us/MelanieMo rganHangem06272006H08M06.wma

Her other co-host suggests the editors at the AP commit mass suicide. What prompted this comment? They did a story about Cindy Sheehan's hunger strike.
http://s88172659.onlinehome.us/Lee_Roger s_to_AP_Commit_Mass_Suicide_audio_from_K SFO_06292006H06M06.wma

Do you think that she is just going after the NY Times? Nope.
"All of you people are equally guilty of treasonous behavior."
http://s88172659.onlinehome.us/Melanie_M organ_All_guilty_of_treasonous_behavior0 6302006H05M06WSJ.wma

Finally she is right and confident and those damn facts won't get in her way. http://s88172659.onlinehome.us/KSFO_560_ am_Morgan_I_retract_NOTHING_06302006H05M 06.wma

These people depress me.

My two cents:

1.  Right-Wing blogs are ignored, even when they call for violence, because most people have a mental picture of pimply Freepers taking a break from playing Dungeons and Dragons and posting a vile message or two.  That's clearly the picture floating around the TNR offices.  Or, they're seen as the on-line version of the militia members, who talk tough, fondle their AR-15s and preen in their camos and combat gear, but don't do anything.  In either case, it's hard to take them seriously.
    No matter how much TNR tries to say different, the MSM realizes that the Left-Wing bloggers are far more mature and committed; if they didn't before Yearly Kos, they certainly do now. A probability that someone posting a violent comment on a Lefty blog actually has the intent and ability to follow through is minuscule, but orders of magnitude greater than that of a Right-Wing post.
    It's flattery; take it as such.

2.  The cadre of Right-Wingers who would have had to be taken seriously as bloggers has called up too the big leagues -- network news, opinion columns, TNR.  Righty bloggers are still in the minors, and are treated as such.  Also, the top layer of Righties spends a lot of effort angling to make the big league, reducing the value of the actual content of their blogs.
    Glenn Greenwald, for sure, and Digby and Jane Hamsher and others would, on a level playing field, be chat show hosts or at least NYT or WaPo columnists.  But they've hit the glass ceiling, beyond which no one to the left of Bill Clinton has a chance to go.  It's only natural that they be viewed as heftier than their Right-Wing equivalents.  They are heftier than their Right-Wing equivalents.