Brett Kimberlin, the Speedway Bomber, was convicted in 1981 of a week-long bombing spree in Indianapolis, IN, a serial bombing sequence in which eight separate bombs caused extensive property damage, destroyed a police cruiser, and severely maimed a man, which eventually led to the man’s suicide.  Kimberlin spent 17 years in prison for his crimes, including having his parole revoked when, after losing a $1.6 million judgment in favor of the widow of the suicide victim, he refused to pay—not couldn’t pay, refused to pay.

Of course, there is the possibility of redemption and of correcting old ways, of making amends.  But not all are repentant.  Consider that Kimberlin still hasn’t paid the judgment.  Consider the $200 thousand bounty that Kimberlin’s Velvet Revolution put on the Chamber of Commerce’s Tom Donohue.  Consider the attacks on Patterico (also via Memorandum, if that link doesn’t work), and on Stacy McCain, and on Michelle Malkin.  While the attacks on Malkin may not have been perpetrated by Kimberlin and his…colleagues…they are of a type.

But, aside from these cowardly attacks from the Left against people whose only crime is that they are conservative and both act and write like it, I also am interested in the Progressive leadership condoning such bullying and potentially criminal behaviors.  Where is the hue and cry about Brett Kimberlin’s activities and those of his ilk?

To be sure, nor conservatives nor Progressives need decry every little wrong, every smearing speech such as Arizona State Senator Linda Lopez’ (D) attempt to lay the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords off on conservatives, that this or that extremist makes.  But surely these ongoing and dangerous attacks, not only against the conservatives, but their families also, warrant an outcry from an honest left.  But the President, his campaign advisors, the DNC leadership, the Progressive leadership in Congress all are silent.  And by their passive silence about these events of which they surely are aware, they actively condone them.

But it’s of a piece with Progressive civility.  This is the civility that has Congressman John Lewis (D, GA) claiming—without substantiation even today—that conservative Tea Partiers called him a nigger, that has Congressman Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) dismissing those who protested against Obamacare as not American and Astroturfers, that has DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D, FL), at her protest gathering outside then-candidate Allen West’s campaign headquarters, saying about conservatives and conservative protesters

I don’t see any swastikas or any pictures of the President in black face or burned in effigy here.  The difference between the way we express our First Amendment rights and the way I’ve seen Tea Party extremists—Republican Tea Party extremists—express their right is dramatically different.

And President Obama saying

Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care?

All they haven’t done, yet, is to send out their own SWAT teams.