Building the Beast That Devours You

Richard Cohen is shocked, shocked at the tone of some of the emails he's received in response to his assessment of Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. The left-wing "digital lynch mob," apparently, made Cohen feel that he had gotten "a bucket of raw, untreated and disease-laden verbal sewage right in the face."

Yes, well, he ought to try posting something not-left-of-center over at the Huffington Post -- because, by comparison, his email sounds downright friendly.

Sounds to me like the wrong-but-rational left is starting to become a wee bit afraid of the beast that's been created -- that is, the far-left netizens. And they should be. But part of what has allowed Cohen's "lynch mob" to assemble has been the reluctance of the wrong-but-rationals to defend Bush under any circumstances, even from the most egregious slanders.

Don't make any mistake . . . Republicans on the Hill realize they have a political problem. But if they've got an ace in the hole, it's the fact that Richard Cohen's correspondents are out there, showing more and more the mentality that has captured much of the Democratic Party.