Recently, the wingnutosphere went on one of its periodic jihads attacking Rhode Island law professor Erik Loomis for having tweeted the following after Sandy Hook:

I was heartbroken in the first 20 mass murders. Now I want Wayne LaPierre’s head on a stick.

Among the first to pounce, labeling it "eliminationist rhetoric," was the well-noted smear artist Glenn Reynolds, who also has a penchant for indulging in the fantasy that left-wing political violence is a bigger problem than right-wing violence.

Well, as someone who has written and published a book on the subject matter -- The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right -- let me put simply something I have said many times in many different and windier ways over the years: Glenn Reynolds is completely full of crap.

As I explain in the book, the term describes not just ordinary violent rhetoric, but rather involves the "positing of elimination as the solution to political disagreement. Rather than engaging in a dialogue over political and cultural issues, one side simply dehumanizes its opponents and suggests, and at times demands, their excision."

Eliminationism, I explain, is

a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination.

Rhetorically, eliminationism takes on certain distinctive shapes. It always depicts its opposition as beyond the pale, the embodiment of evil itself, unfit for participation in their vision of society, and thus worthy of elimination. It often further depicts its designated Enemy as vermin (especially rats and cockroaches) or diseases, and disease-like cancers on the body politic. A close corollary—but not as nakedly eliminationist—are claims that opponents are traitors or criminals and that they pose a threat to our national security.

Eliminationism is often voiced as crude "jokes," a sense of humor inevitably predicated on venomous hatred. And such rhetoric—we know as surely as we know that night follows day—eventually begets action, with inevitably tragic results.

Two key factors distinguish eliminationist rhetoric from other political hyperbole:

It is focused on an enemy within, people who constitute entire blocs of the citizen populace.

It advocates the excision and extermination of those entire blocs by violent or civil means.

Loomis's remark is a rather generic political expression -- and not even a particularly violent one, considering its long provenance in the annals of ordinary rhetoric -- directed at a single person, not a whole class of them. By definition, it simply isn't eliminationist. At worst, it is simply generic violent rhetoric of the "off with their heads" variety.

Of course, Reynolds has responded petulantly:

But hey, if you want to argue that “head on a stick” isn’t any sort of eliminationist rhetoric, well, duly noted.

Right. Just as it is duly noted that Glenn Reynolds is a right-wing jackass.

Just as when he labeled MEChA "fascist hatemongers", Reynolds seems not to understand that when one is called out on a viciously false smear, an apology is usually forthcoming. But of course, no such thing will occur here. Same as it ever was.

Well, that didn't take long. BillO and his merry band of conservative echoes are letting all their paranoia hang out for the world to see, and tonight he took Alan Colmes along for the ride. About halfway through it gets pretty funny, as Bill declares war on the "liberal cabal" who read the same websites and then infiltrate the LA Times and other mainstream publications.

You know, that sounds a lot like the Fox effect to me, doesn't it?

It's pretty laughable to hear BillO declare that only liberals do this, there are no silos on the other side, no echo chamber, nothing like that to see here, nope, never, no way.

O'REILLY: (to Colmes) Even you know what this is all about. It's a cabal. They use the same words, they read the same websites, but when it gets into places like the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the same thing. When it gets into Variety, which is where John Leguizamo picked it up, then it comes back and I'm David Duke.

No, no, no. Address this. Does that concern you?

I don't know about Alan Colmes, but it concerns the hell out of me, especially when Fox News is actually structured as a cabal to support the Karl Roves and Mitt Romneys of the world.

But wait, there's more. Please try not to laugh when BillO claims it's only liberals, never conservatives that do this. Because cabal, people. CABAL.

O'REILLY: Colmes just said what I presented happens on the right, too. Does it?

CROWLEY: It does not happen the way you describe it. I wrote a whole book about this called What Just Happened? What you are describing are the far left kooks and there's a real distinction to be made between your father's Democratic party -- the party of Harry Truman dropping the A bomb on Japan to stop World War II, the party of JFK which lowered tax rates to get job creation and economic growth.

The far left nuts who are now running the country not only at the highest levels of government but in the media, the unions, George Soros and now they are extremists to the nth degree.

ZOMG, Soros, unions and the scary black guy. All in one breath. Monica, Monica, you just keep gilding that turd of a bubble you're in, K?

Also, projection much?

In this campaign cycle, something unique happened. Usually candidates define the message and then push it out to media and bloggers. But Mitt Romney did things exactly backwards, adopting memes, "exact words", and other talking points from right wing blogs. Here are a few examples:

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