Are some at Fox News having second thoughts about embracing and helping to mainstream fringe, anti-government conspiracy nut Alex Jones? Especially now that Jones' Web site seems to be stoking calls for violence against federal employees?

Here's a recent Foxnews.com report on the rash of anti-government threats being made on IRS workers in the wake of health care reform being passed [emphasis added]:

The health care law has sparked protests on radical anti-tax and anti-government Web sites and within their private, password-protected e-mail lists and message boards. Some writers have labeled March 21 -- the day the House passed the bill – “Bloody Sunday,” and they see it as a call to violent action against IRS workers.

In the days following the House vote, animosity toward the IRS intensified, and many heated online protests included specific discussions about the best way to go about killing tax agents.

Hundreds of comments were posted in response to an incendiary story on infowars.com, the radical far-right Web site owned by radio host Alex Jones. The story, entitled, “The Cost Of Defying Obamacare: $2,250 a Month And IRS Goons Pointing Guns At Your Family,” focused on the “increasing militarization of the IRS” and its expansion of powers under the new health care law.

So it appears that Jones is at the center of the radical, anti-government movement and owns a “radical far-right Web site,” which seems to be housing lots of the potentially murderous rhetoric about IRS agents.

Message from Foxnews.com article: Jones is a bad guy.

That's odd because last year Fox News presented the same government-hating Jones as something of a folk hero:

During a March 18 webcast of FoxNews.com's proudly paranoid “Freedom Watch,” Andrew Napolitano introduced a segment about “what the government has done to take your liberty and your property away.” And with that, he welcomed onto the show "the one, the only, the great Alex Jones," who began ranting about “exposing” the New World Order and the threat posed by an emerging “global government.”

"I appreciate what you're exposing," Napolitano assured his guest...Concluding the interview, Fox News' Napolitano announced "it's absolutely been a pleasure" listening to Jones' insights.