Outstanding editorial in yesterday’s Daily Star by Cary Brunswick, on the subject of that tacky cover published by the New Yorker last month.

I was shocked not by the message itself, because we’ve already heard too many racists and religious fanatics espouse their fear-mongering accusations about Obama’s middle name and American loyalties. There’s been plenty of such paranoid talk.

No, I was surprised and saddened to see a legitimate neo-liberal magazine feeding that paranoia. The drawing’s intent obviously was satire, but the impact on many people will not be.

It would be a sad, sad commentary on the people of these United States of America if, after all this time and all the water under the bridge, we were still so primitive that we couldn’t bring ourselves to vote for a candidate just because of his race.

A lot of people, if you talk to them, will tell you that we Americans are past all that. But, of course, the McCain campaign and their sympathizers are trotting out the old stereotypes and race baiting and religion baiting (inaccurate religion baiting, since Mr. Obama is not a Muslim … and it shouldn’t matter, even if he were). They wouldn’t be doing that stuff if they didn’t have reason to believe it might work.

Did you think the Karl Rove style of political campaigning had fallen by the wayside, just because the man himself left the White House in disgrace? Of course not … not among Republicans!

Let’s just hope that they’re wrong. I don’t know about you, but I would like to have a better opinion of my fellow citizens than that.