In the letters section of the Poynter Institute's Romenesko media-news site, a man named Dennis Persica, a reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune (most recent news dispatch here), wrote that with the anti-press animus of conservatives right now, it's possible that the New York Times could face a break-in by the U.S. Attorney's office. But the speculation grew much wilder, against Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin and their fans:

You can count on the Limbaughs and Malkins of the world to defend the move. Just look at these posters on Malkin's website. There is a significant portion of their fanbase who couldn't care less if every journalist in the country was simply jailed or gunned down. (Remember Ann Coulter's comments about the New York Times building?) Even supposedly saner voices, like Bill Bennett and Rep. Peter King, have joined in the chorus.

I quickly dashed off a letter of my own to Romenesko, noting Al Franken went around the “mainstream media” circuit making jokes about Bush officials being executed for treason in the Plame case. (And journalists like Matt Lauer laughed.) Would it be fair or accurate to claim, based on this, that a “significant portion” of the Left believes that Bush officials should be gunned down? It is in no way fair or accurate to inflate and caricature conservative criticisms of the liberal media into a grand wish of wanting them dead. And it's sad that the New Orleans Times-Picayune thinks that a man this unhinged can be an "objective" news man.

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center