Well, someone tossed a teabag on the front stoop of The Progressive Wednesday.

I’d seen two busloads of the baggers drive up across the street near the Capitol here in Madison, Wisconsin, but I didn’t know they were going to leave their calling card.

I don’t dismiss this phenomenon as a mere stunt by Fox News or some fake grassroots effort by the Republican Party and their corporate bosses.

No, there’s something real going on out there.

And it’s not pretty.

One person at the Madison rally held a sign that said, “Obama is the anti-Christ.”

Another sign read: “Obama’s Plan: White Slavery.”

At other protests around the country, teabaggers held up signs accusing him of treason.

Some compared him to Hitler (HuffingtonPost has a collection of the worst photos).

One said: “Barack Hussein Obama: The New Face of Hitler,” and it depicted Obama in a Nazi uniform and with a Hitler mustache.

Another said: “The American Taxpayers Are the Jews for Obama’s Ovens.”

This is ugly, dangerous stuff.

Fox News and the Republican Party are playing with fire here. Already, there is a heightened threat from far rightwing white supremacist groups in this country, so much so that Homeland Security has alerted the public to it.

And when the fulminators on the rightwing airwaves gin up the rhetoric against Obama, they’re all but recruiting for these groups.

Let’s face it, there are a lot of nuts out there. And a lot of guns to go with them.

By inciting these hate groups, Fox and Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey may be loosing forces they’ll later regret.

Teabags are harmless. Bullets aren’t.