Less than forty-eight hours after a horrible tragedy involving a deranged lunatic whose library includes the works of Karl Marx, Mr. Krugman has the gall to make a blatantly partisan attack.

Both parties are guilty of toxic rhetoric, even threats. For instance, were conservatives responsible for the Black Panther Party’s voter intimidation in Philadelphia in 2008? What about the left’s anti-military rhetoric, particularly Code Pink’s, and the 50 plus attacks on U.S. military recruiting stations since March 2003? How about Senator Harry Reid’s remarks that, “This war is lost,” in 2007 just before President Bush’s successful surge began in Iraq? The comments not only served to demoralize tens of thousands of troops in Iraq, but gave succor and hope to America’s enemies.

During a June 2008 Philadelphia fundraiser, the same city where there were later reports of Black Panthers members intimidating voters, Obama announced, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun”.

NPR’s Nina Totenberg said of Senator Jesse Helms in 1995, “I think he ought to be worried about what’s going on in the Good Lord’s mind because if there is retributive justice, he’ll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will.”

Not to mention all the unsubstantiated assertions that George Bush “lied” to the American people about his belief that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Then you have the left’s two old saws: accusations of racism and reductio ad Hitlerum.

Case in point: Kanye West’s “George Bush doesn’t care about black people!”

Then there is the comparison of the left’s political opponents to Adolf Hitler.

In 1994, Jesse Jackson likened the proposals of the new Republican majority to Nazism and apartheid – “If this were Germany, we would call it fascism. If this were South Africa, we would call it racism.”

Not to mention that anti-Bush political rallies were frequently peppered with signage equating the former President and his administration to the Third Reich.

You cannot have it both ways.

Mr. Krugman, at a time when this country is trying to come together, you seek to divide it. Please stick to economic analysis. Partisan poison is beneath a man of your substantial intellect.

Let’s face it. Both liberals and conservatives have been guilty of violent rhetoric over the past decade. We need to move past it, not wallow in another “opportunity” for political partisanship.