Steven Lubet in Salon apparently slept through the Bush years:

American political discourse has gotten increasingly nasty over the past 10 months, with brutal rhetoric spilling from talk radio to town hall meetings to the very halls of Congress.

Ooooh. "Brutal" rhetoric? Like burning the president in effigy? Calling for his demise, or gleefully welcoming it? Likening him to Hitler? Threatening to put opposition leaders on trial and in jail? Oh, excuse me, wrong party.

So what's his example of this "brutal" rhetoric?

When anti-government protesters openly carry loaded weapons at rallies and Texas Gov. Rick Perry hints at the possibility of secession, you might wonder whether the nation is actually at the brink of civil war over the unlikely issue of healthcare reform.

Well, quite a laundry list of violence! What's that, like two whole examples? (Gee, it's Chicago, 1968, all over again.) Two second-amendment nuts show they can carry in public? (How "brutal"!) What about the Rick Perry thing? Did he engage in a "brutal" hinting?

Perry triggered debate of secession in April, when he fired up a "tea party" protest in Austin with an anti-Washington speech that prompted the flag-waving audience to shout, "Secede!" The governor, a Republican, never advocated leaving the union, but he said: "If Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that." [Dallas Morning News, bold added]

Ooooh! An anti-Washington speech! How irresponsible! — not to mention unheard-of! (Except, you know, every single campaign season, from both right and left.) And in response, some random Texans threatening to succeed? That never happened before Obama, either. Oh, by the way, one of my ex-girlfriend's frequent jokes (she grew up in Colorado) was "Texans like to talk a lot about how they can secede. But they don't want to mention it too much because they know we might ask them to." That was back in 1989, by the way.

And never mind the Kabuki enacted by the Hollywood left before each national election, where our 'elites' pledge to leave this awful, terrible country if their preferred candidate doesn't win, and then fails, much to our dismay, to keep their promises. Or the famous "Jesusland" map so popular on the left. Threats of dividing the country up politically are (a) entirely new, (b) unbearably shocking to Lubet's delicate ears, and (c) peculiar to the "brutal" American right.

And who thinks this is a cause for Civil War? Is the right saying this? Read again:

When anti-government protesters openly carry loaded weapons at rallies and Texas Gov. Rick Perry hints at the possibility of secession, you might wonder whether the nation is actually at the brink of civil war over the unlikely issue of healthcare reform. Sadly, the commentators and politicians who exploit such threats of violence and revolution...

Oh, the reader is supposed to come away thinking of "civil wars" and "revolutions"! Ah, I see! And who are these "commentators" who "exploit" such associations? Gee, I wonder where I could possibly find an example! Not very self-aware, are we?

Elsewhere on Salon, in the wake of revelations that the New York Times killed a story on ACORN last October because they were afraid it would hurt Obama's standing, Gene Lyons assures his readers there's no such thing as mainstream media bias. Except, of course on Fox News:

Appearing on CNN's "Reliable Sources," the White House's Dunn made it clear that the Obama administration intends to deal with the network as a political enemy. "We're going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent," she subsequently told The New York Times. "As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave."

As feckless and cowardly as the so-called "mainstream" media have grown in the face of conservative propaganda about "liberal media bias," this strikes me as very good news. Something like it ought to have been done as long ago as President Clinton's first term. For the better part of a generation, Democrats have conducted themselves as if they expected Superman himself to come flying in the window to save them. [bold mine]

If you attack the President's policies, you're no longer "legitimate"? — which means, last I looked, valid or lawful. Yes, by all means, Democrats should certainly use the power of the state to select "winners" and "losers" among supportive media outlets. Just like, oh, what's-his-name does.... oh yes, Hugo Chavez! "Good news" indeed!

But they won't because, you know, they're just so gosh darned good. (The "we're so nice we never win" meme, which the left always tells itself — interspersed with threats, as above, to use the power of the state to silence or delegitimize opposition.)

By taking sides so brazenly, Fox has gained audience share at the expense of turning itself into a big fat political target. The establishment political press is far too timid and clubby to have made this discovery on its own.

If you criticize the administration your organization becomes a "political" target. Everyone, join hands and feel the niceness!

Look, I don't even watch Fox News, but I support their right to be just as "biased" as the New York Times, The Nation, CNN, Salon or any other media outlet. (Sean Hannity is biased, while Olbermann is just reading the news.) But what concerns me are the constant screams I see to have Fox treated differently politically, by those in power, than more sycophantic news outlets.

That, and the way so many prominent left-leaning pundits appear to be nearly delusional about what's going on. No opposition in the Bush years? Democrats never talk of dividing up the country or leaving it? No bias in the Times or on CNN? Democrats are too nice to even consider shutting down their opponents? (What was the "fairness doctrine" all about?) What parallel universe do these people inhabit?