The "Climate of Fear"

Michelle "internment is kewl" Malkin is upset about "hate crime[s]." Stanley "Andrew Sullivan is personally undermining marriage" Kurtz is agonizing about a "climate of fear." Has the cult of victimhood now finished its long voyage from Left to Right?

Maybe. The authors above say that those hardy pilgrims willing to tempt fate by displaying Bush/Cheney signs or bumper stickers are being hit with "unprecedented" vandalism from, in the typically nuanced words of Malkin, "bug-eyed, rock-throwing, lighter-wielding Kerry/Edwards supporters just exercising their 'free speech.'" Kurtz frets:

There is a climate of fear. Again and again, Corner readers say they've been scared off of posting bumper stickers by visions of having their cars keyed or their windows smashed.

Before you snicker too much about the feverish "visions" of Corner readers (though the tone in Kurtz's column is a veritable snickerpalooza), read both columns for the apparently very real acts of anti-Republican property damage. Reminds me of the time we put up a French flag under our Stars & Stripes at home, only to have someone from our extremely Blue-state neighborhood light it on fire within 20 hours. Anyway, I was intrigued by this Kurtz comment:

Apparently, these attacks are so common that you can now buy a T-Shirt with a picture of a slashed-out Bush-Cheney logo and the legend, "A person of tolerance and diversity keyed my car."

Does that T-shirt indeed prove that the "these attacks are so common"? I actually first encountered that jarring slogan and image in an ad on a WashingtonTimes.com Lyn Nofziger book review of Pat Buchanan's Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, and wondered just how its creator, AuthenticGOP.com, knew that the keying in question was done by "a person of tolerance and diversity." Tolerance, I get (Democrats proclaim to be the party of tolerance), but "a person of diversity" seems to suggest a minority, no? At any rate, at the same site you can also buy buttons and shirts saying "10 out 10 Terrorists Agree: Anyone But Bush." As long as we're all against that Climate of Fear….

Readers with stories of election-year vandalism are encouraged to leave them in the comments.