Now there's a strawman if I ever saw one!!! There was no claim that there was no incivility while Bush was in office.
Really, I thought the imlication was extremely clear.
Are we becoming a nation of incivility?
Right off the bat. "Are we becomign". Not "have we become". This wording in and of itself implies its currently happening, not something that's been happening for a while. But lets continue on. Its just the first line. Benefit of the doubt....
First we had the Palin crowd shouting things like "Kill him" in regards to Barack Obama.
Hmmm, republican on Obama.
Then we had the folk that showed up at town hall meetings, yelling and disrupting.
Hmm, republican on democrats.
Now we have Joe Wilson shouting out during the President's address to Congress
Hmm, Republican on Obama
Serena Williams fighting with the line judge and Kayne West interrupting the VMA awards.
Ah, finally two examples not pointing to Republicans....and their completely non-political.
That benefits going away.
Are we seeing a new rise of incivility in America today?
New Rise. Again, that implication that this is something recent, just becoming.
Give me a break jack. This is no strawman, its clear and obvious implication from the OP.
However, ignoring the obvious hyper partisan spin and hackery by the OP lets try and answer the question in a broader sense.
No, I don't think we're becoming a less civil society. However, I do think with the rise of 24/7 news, hollywood dirt sheets, the internet, and social networking incidents of incivility are far more often focused on. Its always been one of those issues where its easier to have a conversation or stir up bigger interest in someone doing something controversial than someone doing something good and upstanding. The latter gets claps and pats on the back and is quickly ignored, the former can go on for ages.
So I don't think, as a society, we're necessarily less civil as a whole, but more with the advent of technology the ability to see, and thus the amount of rebroadcasting and rediscussing, incidents of incivility has increased thus giving the impression of a greater amount.
In regards to Democrats "suddenly" seeing a new rise of incivility, no. Its a simple sypmtom of perception. Many extremely partisan individuals, and even just normally partisan individuals, are naturally either consiously or subconsiously to the extent of things their side does and conversely at times over exaggerate what the other side does. I don't think there's suddenly a huge amount more incivility here as much as its Democrats now being on the opposite end of the spectrum and going "wow, this is sooooo bad". In reality, its not all that different no matter how often the most hyper partisan of them desperately try to rationalize it so they can fit into the "Conservatives bad/evil, Liberals good/pure" bull**** world view.