"Limbaugh, Hannity, Dobbs, Malkin, and others immediately thought, "Wait, maybe they're talking about us!""

No. They immediately thought, "Hey! another way to keep our names in the news!!"

This little game is getting kind of fun! Next, let's leak to the New York Times that the sky is blue...

With DHS also concerned about "left-wing extremists," it seems mainstream liberals aren't especially concerned about being lumped in with a violent fringe.

Which the nutjobs will take as PROOF! of a left-wing bias;>

Maybe because we are sane and they...aren't?

people who embrace some components of "anticapitalist" or "antiglobalization" ideas.

OK, antiglobalization sounds like the Ron Paul/Lou Dobbs crowd, but who are the anticapitalists? I don't think of Noam Chomsky as being any particular threat.

When DHS raised concerns about radical right-wing extremists who might commit acts of violence, Limbaugh, Hannity, Dobbs, Malkin, and others immediately thought, "Wait, maybe they're talking about us!"

Well, but that's because those people either call for violence themselves, or countenance such calls from others. You don't find lefty media people doign that.

Feh. So the DHS is "balanced"; while the Secret Service, FBI, state Attorneys General, states' law enforcement and local police and sheriffs continue to spy on and harass individuals who dare to speak out on vanilla issues like mountaintop removal, or be guilty of showing up at "town hall meetings" while having the wrong bumper sticker or T-shirt.

I'm sick of the wingnuts frankly. They are predictably stupid and I can only infer that their audience (at least the believers) are just as, if not more stupid than the celebs they follow. Throughout this assault on the President (lets not forget that he's Black and that fact has a LOT to do with all of this)I've worried that the flames are being fanned to the point where some crazed lunatic from the right is going to do someone of prominence some harm. I'm sure I'm not alone in this fear and no amount of analysis about how the right has to blow off steam or how the big fat one, Manatee and the rest of the idiots need to keep their ratings up can hide the fact that this danger exists. What they do is irresponsible - pure and simple. They know that the potential for violence is real, yet they keep pushing buttons. DHS finally gives credence to this threat and they go nuts. I'm tired of it all - just really damn tired. Stupid people can really be taxing on one's nerves, especially when they just refuse to go away.

It's most terrifying as a liberal that I might be associated with those dangerous and violent left wing Pro-Marijuana Legalization activists!

seriously, dude, beware the hardcore pro-weed crowd. they might form a mob, break into your house and, um, eat all your raw hot dogs and crash on your couch. or, uh, so I've heard. . . *tiptoes out*

break into your house and, um, eat all your raw hot dogs and crash on your couch

Turn on a lava lamp. They'll never leave.

It's most terrifying as a liberal that I might be associated with those dangerous and violent left wing Pro-Marijuana Legalization activists!

Exactly! Why, imagine the devastation if a crowd of them all got the munchies at the same time! It would be like a horde of locusts. America must be protected from this grave threat, and oh, never mind that wingnut over there parking a truck in front of a Federal building...

Would they be having pangs of guilt because of their rabble rousing I wonder? Hmmm...probably not.

Would they be having pangs of guilt because of their rabble rousing I wonder? Hmmm...probably not.

Did the ones who were on the radio at the time do so after Oklahoma City? Well, there's your answer.

To be fair, one of Michelle Malkin's complaints about the DHS report on the right-wing extremists is that no group is named, where as the DHS report on left-wing extremists does name groups.

Rinse, foment, and agitate.

... Limbaugh, Hannity, Dobbs, Malkin, and others immediately thought, "Wait, maybe they're talking about us!"

I believe it was Chuck Norris who talked about "cells." If any of the above played pattycake with the idea, I hope my government uses the Patriot Act to full extent to protect us from incipient dangers.

Practicing Wing-nuttery is one thing. Fomenting and agitating violence against my country quite another. We have prisons for domestic terrorists you know...

What group did McVeigh belong to? Violent right-wing crazies are often antisocial loners.

"the Obama administration's Department of Homeland Security"

Given the speed at which government agencies work, particularly in the preparation of "studies" and "reports", I have a difficult time believing that this was actually done since January 20th. It seems much more likely that the bulk of the work was done during the Bush administration -- but that would hardly play into the rightwing paranoia.

What group did McVeigh belong to?

The Michigan Militia. Hell, people were convicted of being his accomplices--what do you mean, "loaner"?

People like Tim McVeigh and Richard Polawski (the pittsburgh cop killer) don't do this stuff in a vacuum. They might have acted as loners but it's really foolish to assume that there aren't organized white supremacist groups out there who'd like to do a lot worse. The report is concerned with white supremacists/militia types recruiting the vulernable and disenfranchised who have been hurt by the down economy. This is a real concern and local police departments need to be aware.

Right-wingers like Beck or Malkin are using the report to pretend that they're being oppressed, that they're being targeted, because it fits into their persecuted demagoguery. The truth is that they probably do have scary, white supremacist types among them and they don't seem interested in telling those people that they don't belong in their movement. That would be the responsible thing to do.

They're also upset because that Hawaiian Muslim, Obama, is persecuting our veterans:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/15/scarborough-dhs-report/

Those hypocritical rightards didn't care when anyone criticizing Bush or the War could be kept off planes for real, but bitch about DHS keeping tabs on real militias and not even bothering conservative activists.

It's what struck me as so strange yesterday. When DHS raised concerns about radical right-wing extremists who might commit acts of violence, Limbaugh, Hannity, Dobbs, Malkin, and others immediately thought, "Wait, maybe they're talking about us!"

This strikes me as disingenuous. If Bush's DHS had talked up the threat of "left-wing extremists", I would certainly have wondered whether this might be cover for Rovian political activities--wiretapping political opponents, infiltrating peace groups, and all the other shit that we know they did in the '60s and almost certainly did in the '00s.

The reason nobody's alarmed about Obama's DHS doing a report on left-wing extremists isn't that we're less prone to paranoia than they are (though that is in fact the case), it's that we're talking about Obama's DHS, and nobody thinks Obama's out to destroy the democratic party.

But the shoe's on the other foot for republicans. It wouldn't surprise me to hear even mainstream conservatives express concern about government scrutiny of the extremist fringe, knowing that such scrutiny doesn't always stop at the fringe. It certainly doesn't surprise me to hear those concerns, in the usual form of "hysterical shrieking," from the Malkin/Beck axis.

I think actual groups who support and plan deadly violence in the United States are quite small.

But since the advent of automatic weapons, the violence can be farmed out to emotionally unstable individuals fired up by the rhetoric and tacit social support for violent acts.

In terms of inciting deadly violence with inflammatory rhetoric, there is really only one side of the political spectrum to consider.

The far left fringe is, indeed, the far left fringe. Even the most radical lefties in Congress (Kucinich, Sanders), on TV (Maddow, Olbermann), or newspapers (Krugman, Hebert) hold views only slightly left of center. None of these prominent lefites has any interest in, relationship with, or support from the far left fringe.

By contrast, the far right fringe is present in all the leading institutions of the U.S. Compare statements of the militia whackos and avowed white supremacists to those of the right wing media or Republican Congresscritters and the similarity is stunning. Furthermore, the far right fringe is very much welcome at Conservative events, and is the core part of the conservative support.

People like Tim McVeigh and Richard Polawski (the pittsburgh cop killer) don't do this stuff in a vacuum. They might have acted as loners but it's really foolish to assume that there aren't organized white supremacist groups out there who'd like to do a lot worse.

Exactly. McVeigh had a fair amount of direct support from white supremacist militias in addition to his partner in crime Terry Nichols, and Polawski was an active member of the message boards at Stormfront. They may have acted individually, but it would be foolish to say they "acted alone," because they had a lot of support for their ideas and actions.

Olbermann isn't so much a lefty as he is a muckracker in a right wing swamp.

In my mind, I think we've drawn the distinction that liberal bloggers & their readers do not associate themselves with left-wing extremists, while conservative bloggers & followers have not done the same with right-wing extremists.

[...]we're talking about Obama's DHS,[...] -- Evan, @14:40

Yeah, but the putzes went off half-cocked, as usual. According to Think Progress, both reports (about the left wing extremism and the right wing extremism) were requested by Bush. The first one -- about the left-wig extremism -- was released shortly after Obama took office (Jan 26, IIRC).
Only, of course, the fRight-nuts didn't worry about *that* one, because it seems natural to them that everyone in the left wing (fringe and ruffle and the whole dress) should be scrutinised closely (by far the best way would be to pack them all off to Gitmo).

*And* (according to TPMDC), the report was not only *requested* by Saintly George himself, but *carried out* under the supervision of Dubya's appointee; it just didn't happen to be finished on Dubya's watch, is all. That is, it's not so much "Obama's DHS" in this particular instance.

But, hey... why worry about details when spouting in outrage is so much more fun. And, anyway, checking minor details (like facts or truth) is above the pay level of "journalists" such as Hannity and Scarborough and the rest of the rabid pack.

I recognize that the left has its nuts, though I don't think their aims are to bring down the government, and they have been notably ineffective as whatever it is they want to do. But, DHS isn't supposed to be "fair and balanced." They are supposed to identify and respond to real threats. If those are on the right, so be it.

Now, given this, are liberal media figures, pundits, bloggers, and talk-show hosts likely to throw a complete fit?

Damn it, they should have a fit.

I find it distinctly odd that all the discussion I have heard from liberals on this point is to the effect that the conservatives now are so wrong for protesting rather that to acknowledge that the liberals, for having failed to protest under Bush, were remiss.