There are always people who want to kill the president. Generally speaking, they are politically marginalized, insane, and/or too incompetent to come close to achieving their ends. But in the past six months, people who would be inclined to do violence to our political leaders have been affirmatively embraced by the Republican Party and its messaging operation. It's as if there had been a 24-hour cable news channel in 1981 devoted to coverage of Jodie Foster, and what it would take for someone to get her attention...
Did extremists on the left adopt the same tone against Bush? Yes. And there is an element in this wingnuttery of the same sort of dispossessed rage and periodic venting that many liberals felt under the last administration. But it's different when that rage is being purposefully manipulated to (imagined) political advantage by the GOP. And it's different when there's actually a guy with a gun waiting for the president to show up.
