In “Digital Lynch Mob,” Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen recounts getting barraged with left-wing letters over his criticism of Stephen Colbert and writes about the raw sewage floating in his e-mailbox.

The e-mails pulse in my queue, emanating raw hatred. This spells trouble — not for Bush or, in 2008, the next GOP presidential candidate, but for Democrats. The anger festering on the Democratic left will be taken out on the Democratic middle. (Watch out, Hillary!) I have seen this anger before — back in the Vietnam War era. That’s when the antiwar wing of the Democratic Party helped elect Richard Nixon. In this way, they managed to prolong the very war they so hated.

The hatred is back. I know it’s only words now appearing on my computer screen, but the words are so angry, so roiled with rage, that they are the functional equivalent of rocks once so furiously hurled during antiwar demonstrations.

Newsflash, Richard: They’re still throwing rocks. And hurling paint. And Molotov cocktails. And lucky for you, they save their worst invective not for squishy elite liberals, but for minority conservatives.

Austin Bay is slightly amused, slightly annoyed:

“Hatred is back,” he writes. Pish. These unhinged leftish kooks have been spewing this bile for years– since roughly 1968. Arguably the bile has fossilized– but Cohen is just now noticing it.

Alas, he writes: “Institution after institution failed America — the presidency, Congress and the press. ”

Ridiculous. He sees the problem –the venomous, inexcuseable lack of civility and insistent demonization of opponents– but won’t really confront it. Instead, he partially excuses the phenomenon, with a cry of “the system’s failed!.” Utter pish.

The American left is where the American far right was in the 1950s– besotted with anger, boiling in conspiracy theories. There is a difference, however. “Opinion leaders” like Cohen have let the hard left take a large bite out of their own liberal “mainstream.” Cohen has just now discovered it, because his email box got jammed with garbage. It is a step toward enlightenment, however hesitant a step.

But read Cohen’s entire essay for yourself. Don’t snicker too harshly.

A few snorts will do.

Maybe I’ll send Cohen a copy of Unhinged so he won’t feel so bad.

***

Allah wields his mighty cluebat.