Excellent piece by Paul Begala

Such is the hatred of the far right at the dawn of the 21st Century. And my how the optical worm has turned. Today it is the left invoking faith, flag and family, while the right destroys crosses. Today it is the left that honors the war dead, raises up a Gold Star Mother and publicly prays for our troops, while the right viciously attacks a woman who gave her country everything. Today it is the left that patiently and peacefully respects the Office of the Presidency, while the right diminishes the office by claiming it’s more important for the President to go bike-riding with a sports hero than comfort the mother of a war hero.

For the last two presidential elections it has been the Democratic Party whose nominee was a Vietnam War veteran, while the Republicans have sputtered out spurious defenses of their candidate’s deceitful draft-dodging.

On Thursday, Dick Cheney, who said he had “other priorities” in the Vietnam era, and so helped himself to five draft deferments, will address the 73rd Convention of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. I do not think he will express remorse for the callousness with which he explained his cowardice. Nor do I expect him to apologize for the shocking, mocking Republicans who, at their New York Convention a year ago, sported Band-Aids with tiny purple hearts to mock the blood shed by John Kerry and so many other heroes in that misbegotten war.

No, Mr. Cheney, surrounded by body guards who would gladly give their life for him, will no doubt wrap himself in the flag. A flag Larry Chad Northern wrapped around his axle on Prairie Chapel Road.

A few quotes to illustrate that Larry Northern doesn't represent the fringes of the Republican party but the very core of it:

We’re going to keep building the party until we’re hunting Democrats with dogs.
-Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX)
Mother Jones, 8/1995

I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus - living fossils - so we will never forget what these people stood for.
-Rush Limbaugh
Denver Post, 12/29/1995

Environmentalists are a socialist group of individuals that are the tool of the Democrat Party. I’m proud to say that they are my enemy. They are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans.
-Rep. Don Young (R-AK)
Alaska Public Radio, 8/19/1996

Get rid of the guy. Impeach him, censure him, assassinate him.
-Rep. James Hansen (R-UT) 11/1/1998

We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.
-Ann Coulter 2/26/2002

Bush hatred has become a defining characteristic for many liberals—so much so that they appear to identify with it more surely and swiftly than they do their American citizenship. At times, some extremist liberals seem to be rooting against their fellow Americans and in favor of those who would kill us.
-Tara Ross 2/1/2005

The Democratic leadership priority is to actively engage in the politics of division and distraction that can undermine our national security in favor of a left-wing agenda.
-Ron Bonjean 6/23/2005

Wouldn’t it be great if anybody who speaks out against this country, to kick them out of the country? Anybody that threatens this country, kick ‘em out. We’d get rid of Michael Moore, we’d get rid of half the Democratic Party if we would just import that law. That would be fabulous. The Supreme Court ought to look into this. Absolutely brilliant idea out there.
-Rush Limbaugh 8/11/2005

Unfortunatley Larry Northern is but the tip of the iceberg. There will be more violence from the right.

UPDATE: Tom asked for the entire Begala column. I meant to link to it but forgot. Here it is: Anti-War Imagery and the Iconography of Hate