Look if the story is true, it was obviously the work of a very disturbed individual.

Very Disturbed individuals are not often really "right or left" they are disturbed.

So if there person feared a "fed" it could be for any number of reasons, and likely not the reasons sane people would imagine.

The "Feds" for example have been beaming information into their heads as part of their corpratists/communist conspiracies and the "census worker" was clearly an assasin.

The Mentally ill are rarely violent, but when they do get violent there is very rarely rhyme or reason to it. Just the fact that they were off their meds and a strange person came to the door might be enough to set them off.

A right wing refusnick for the census would likely just tell the fellow to get off his property. Something I am sure census workers deal with regularly.

I was just thinking, of the three high profile gang rape cases that I can think of, all were eventually called frauds.

You have the famous wilding incident in central park which although was a rape, it was not a gang rape, as in the end only a single criminal was responsible and the young men convicted were eventually exhonerated.

You then have the Duke Case, and now the Hofstra Case.

So, are there any legitimate cases of gang rape on record?

It strikes me most rapists are likely solitary people, and it seems unlikely that your going to get multiple people together to commit such a violent crime.

But I could be wrong.

However, given the history, maybe we should take all gang rape stories with a little more caution in the future.

He was black before the election.

And of course racists protested against him then as well.

However, not ever McCain voter voted for McCain because they feared a black man, more than they feared a democrat.

The racists are still there, they never stopped protesting Obama, but there are also more and more people who just fear the state's incursions.

Obama's popularity has fallen, and protests against him have increased. That suggests that atlease some of his new antagonists used to be supporters.

To tar them all as racists and then to dismiss their criticism because of this is to push thos legitimate critics into the arms of the racists who are the only people seeming to listen to their concerns.

Of course there are racists in the crowds, just as there were certainly anarchists, and conspiracy theorists in the crowds at anti bush rallies. However to dismiss the whole protest as racist or the whole protest against bush as just the tin foil hat crowd, misses the larger and more important criticism.

While I certainly wouldn't deny the danger of rightwing fringe activists, the left did have it's share of radical bomb throwers (literally) through out it's history.

The actual threat we face is by associating the larger criticism of a movemnet with it's most radical elements.

In doing so, you legitimize the ignoring of their concerns, and thus push the reasonable critics into the arms of the radical fringe.

As such, you have the radical racist revolutionary fringe, and you have fical conservatives, each are worried about the excesses of the government (they were likely concerned with Bushes excesses as well, but in a boom economy didn't have enough motivation, and of course lacked the coordination of Fox News). If you brand them all as racists, you run the risk of driving reasonable oposition into the arms of the radical. If the only people who will hear their concerns are the radicals, then only the radical's solutions to their concerns will be considered.

When members of the left hold up signs with Bush as Hitler and declare he is a barely functional intelectual midget who came to power through illegal means, they are ridiculed as the tin foil hat crowd obsessed with foolish notions, and easily dismissed because of this.

When members of the right hold up signs with Obama as Hitler and declare that he is an intelectual midget who came to power through illegal means, they are ridculed as racists with foolish notions, and easily dismissed because of this.

No real point, but it is interesting to observe the paralells.

As Glenn Greenwald would happily point out, as far as hitlerific policies goes, Obama does not seem much better than Bush. And in that, Obama is much more like Hitler than Bush, as both Obama and Hitler gave excellent speaches to calm their opponents, where as when Bush spoke it simply riled his opponants all the more.

I do not think Obama is Hitlerific as it were, nor did I think Bush was. And my personal feeling is that in both cases, by focusing on the fringe crowds you miss the valid criticism.

People fear that an all powerful state will do more harm than good. The Silly Mayor of Mr. Tomorrow's childrens book is as applicable to the left as the right. There are valid criticisms of Mr. Obama's policies, just as there are many valid criticisms of Mr. Bush's Policies. The problem is, by focusing on the tin foil hat and racists among the protesters, you miss that criticism, and allow the very silly mayors of the world to continue on as they are.

Purple and Green are such nice colors by the way.