Reaping What is Sown

I realize that there are a bunch of hate-filled crazies in the U.S. and that at any given point any of them is capable of performing a heinous act. I also realize we simply can't ignore the environment that spawns these nuts and empowers them to go out and kill people.

Might there to be a slight connection between the politics of fear and divisiveness as practiced by Rove, Bush, Limbaugh, Cheney, Gingrich, Hannity, Fox News etc., etc. and the hate filled murders of an abortion doctor and a guard at the Holocaust Museum?

From MSNBC...

“Right across the board, extremist groups are thriving right now,” says Mark Potok, Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project.

The SPLC has been tracking hate groups for almost 30 years. In its spring 2009 Intelligence Report, they found that 926 hate groups are currently operating in the U.S., an all-time high.

Potok attributes this rise in hate groups to the recession, the election of the nation’s first black president, and the immigration debate.

Missing from that last sentence is eight long and dark years of the Republican Party practicing a brand of extreme Rovian partisan politics whose tools included setting groups against each other, instilling fear and paranoia, unleashing their propagandist attack dog Fox News, and otherwise seeking to divide and conquer.