By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON, Wis. — Gov. Scott Walker should be used to the left’s venom by now.

But as the Republican governor gears up for re-election in 2014 and speculation on his 2016 presidential aspirations heats up, the liberal vitriol appears to be growing.

Case in point: Erin Gloria Ryan’s hasty, hate-filled tweet lamenting the fact that it was actor Paul Walker, star of the “Fast & Furious” movie franchise, not Wisconsin’s chief executive, killed Saturday in a fiery car crash in Southern California.

“Why couldn’t it be Scott Walker,” Ryan, news editor at national feminist blog Jezebel.com, tweeted at 7:14 p.m. Saturday. Her tweet included an accompanying sad face and #Wisconsintweets, according to conservative news site Bizpacreview.

Jezebel bills itself as a feminist blog aimed at women’s interests, under the tagline “Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women. Without Airbrushing.” It is one of several blogs owned by Gawker Media.

Ryan took some heat in cyber land from a lot of conservatives disgusted by her tweet.

As Bizpacreview reported, Ryan deleted the tweet before posting an apology.

“No excuse. It was dumb. I’m sorry,” she wrote not long after her original tweet.

She offered this response a short time later:

“I don’t wish death on anyone. Joking about that was insensitive and inappropriate.”

Seemed like a pretty rough weekend for the editor. On Monday, Ryan wrote that things were improving, however. She picked up the support of some conservative-hating followers, like L Mo, who consoled, “@morninggloria your tweet was hilarious. Imho. I make similar comments about Ann coulter nearly constantly. And Ted nugent.”

Ryan has been the target of some pretty vile comments from some angry conservatives following her original wishful tweet, too. But mostly the response has been disbelief.

“@morninggloria It would go a long way if you tweeted an apology to Gov. Walker,” tweeted John Sitkiewicz ‏@Jrock41S.

As of Monday morning, no direct apology yet.

Should anyone really be surprised by the left’s venom for Walker?

The governor in his new book “Unintimidated: A Governor’s Story and a Nation’s Challenge,” details some of the more abhorrent death threats lodged against him amid the pitched battle over Wisconsin’s public-sector collective bargaining reform known as Act 10.

Things got terribly personal when first lady Tonette Walker received a death threat aimed at her family, according to an account in the book.

“HI TONETTE

“Has Wisconsin ever had a governor assassinated? Scott’s heading that way,” the anonymous letter declared. “Or maybe your sons getting killed would hurt him more. I want him to feel the pain.”

The writer of the threat claimed to have followed the Walkers’ two sons to their school in Wauwatosa and noted the names of the first lady’s parents.

When you are governor, particularly in a state as politically divided as Wisconsin, heated political rhetoric and uncivil behavior come with the territory.

But hatred, hostility and threats of violence have become all too common inside and outside the Badger State.

Contact M.D. Kittle at mkittle@watchdog.org

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