I'm still at a loss to find out why these atheist extremists need a good pummeling. Has the atheist extremist influence on US politics somehow reached some dangerous peak?

The now-reposted article remains bad, with those ridiculous five points and their embarrassing counter-arguments, but assuming that there are people believe who what Melinda says they believe...why pick on these particular people and not lunatics as a whole? It seems to me that ignoring the obvious overall argument (zealots of any stripe are to be avoided) to limit it to a teensy pool of people (a small subset of the already small pool of atheists) is just a way to hunt for unimportant people to demonize.

Further articles in the Extremist Subsets of the Already Ignored series could include:

Albanian Orthodox Babblers
Ashkenazy Goggle-Eyed Freaks
Foam-at-the-Mouth Baha'i
Shaker Silliness
Pagan Pinheads (Earth Goddess-focused)
More Pagan Pinheads (Non-Earth Goddess-focused)
Snakehandler Stupids
Stop Jainist Aggression Now