Not Very Funny

Al Franken, that is. Somehow, luckily, I missed Franken's "comedy" when he was on Saturday Night Live. But if this* is an example of his comedy, I can tell that I didn't miss a thing.

The anger among the neo-liberals - calling them liberals is a slander to honorable men like Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey - has reached an almost pathological level. Yet they seem to be blissfully unaware of it, or the effect that it has on non-kool-aid drinkers that they hope to enlist in their causes.

As Michelle Malkin notes in her new book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild:"

Indeed, last year's presidential campaign was littered with remnants of Democratic incivility, destruction and rage: Smashed windows. Slashed tires. Bloody noses. Burnt lawns.

Bullet holes.

While some Democratic apologists downplayed the incidents as run-of-the-mill pranks and engaged in everybody-does-it equivalence, it became clear to rational observers that left-wing activists had escalated their campaign attacks to an unprecedented level. Simple mischief turned into open-season malice.

* In Gainsville, Fla., college instructor David Philip McCally burst into a Young Republicans club meeting at the local GOP headquarters and walloped a life-size, cardboard cutout of President Bush. But pounding on poor George W. wasn't enough to assuage McCally's pent up anger: The Democrat stormed out of the GOP office and confronted Travis Horn, 32, the chairman of the Alachua County Republican Executive Committee. McCally bragged about his Ph.D. and called Horn "a stupid Republican" before launching into a string of profanity-laced epithets. Then he punched Horn, knocked him into a wall, busted his lip and injured his nose.

McCally was charged with misdemeanor battery and criminal mischief.

* Another madman was on the loose in Sarasota, Fla,, targeting Rep. Katherine Harris with his Cadillac. According to an arrest report, Barry Seltzer, 46, intentionally swerved his car onto a sidewalk where Harris and her supporters were standing and waving at commuters.

Seltzer's lawyers denied that he was motivated by partisan bitterness. But a police lieutenant told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that Seltzer, a registered Democrat, had two Kerry-Edwards signs on his lawn and "was eager to discuss his political views when he was interviewed at the station."

Harris told police she was "afraid for her life" as the car barreled toward her. Seltzer, charged with aggravated felony assault with a deadly weapon, scoffed that he was just "exercising my political expression."

* In the days after the election, local GOP offices were vandalized in Buffalo and Raleigh, N.C.

* Two days after Election Day, five students at Apple Valley High School near Minneapolis — two Bush backers, three Kerry supporters — got into an argument about the election. The students reportedly traded insults, with both sides accusing the other of being gay. Later, in a parking lot near the school, the Kerry three accosted the Bush two and beat one of them up with a baseball bat.

The boy who wielded the bat was charged with second-degree assault, a felony. According to the Dakota County Attorney's Office, two of the three pro-Kerry students were sentenced to "Aggression Replacement Therapy" and/or mental-health screening (something that many Kerry supporters apparently could have used). All three were sentenced to community or work-crew service, required to issue letters of apology and ordered to have no contact with the victims.

LONG after campaign season, the physical assaults and threats against conservatives and Republicans continued.

In February, Howard Dean debated former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle at Pacific University in Portland, Ore. A raving protester named Bruce C. Charles threw a shoe at Perle and shouted "Motherf--king liar."

After Charles was dragged away, "progressive" and "tolerant" Portland liberals heckled, booed and interrupted Perle. Not once did Dean, freshly crowned leader of the party of peace, love, and understanding, chastise the audience for its appalling abuse of Perle.

While the Right is relentlessly characterized in the media as angry and violence-prone, it is the Bush-deranged Left that has indulged in vicious thuggery and intimidation belying the sanctimonious 2004 Democratic Party platform:

"We are committed to resolving our differences in a spirit of civility, hope and mutual respect."

Like kicking Republicans in the - uh, you know where.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, kudos to my new co-conspirator Anna for spilling the beans on Franken's strong support for affirmative action.

*HT - Michelle Malkin, via the New York Post.