Graphic by PW herownself. Honest. :-)

The events of the past week have been humming over on the Know-Nothing front.

We've got arch-anti-brown-immigrant dude Tom Tancredo pulling out of the presidential race -- and Ron Paul's people immediately wooing key Tancredo campaign members such as Minuteman leader Craig Halverson. (This is funny in itself, as Tancredo has officially thrown his support to Mitt Romney.)

We've also got Ron Paul refusing to rule out a run as an independent, which in addition to the prospect of Mike Huckabee being the nominee is making certain Republican bigwigs sweat, if for no other reason than that Ron Paul, unlike the other Republicans, is too obvious in his dog-whistling to the nutballs and racists among the American electorate, to the point where he refuses to repudiate the cash and beliefs of white- supremacist "Stormfront" leader Don Black, who sent him a big check recently. Republicans know that while the corporate press in the US will let them get away with wink-wink, nudge-nudge appeals to racist Neo-Confederates (see, for example, the careers of Trent Lott, Strom Thurmond, and various other prominent Southern Republicans, all of whom have got discreet veils of silence drawn over the sovereignty commisions and other segregationist power brokers who made them what they are), bigots who don't hide behind the Stars and Bars and "heritage" but instead proudly wave the Nazi flag are beyond the pale for even Big Media. (Speaking of dog-whistling to the bigots, Ron Paul is claiming that the South would have gladly and peacefully ended slavery if the North had just bought their slaves and then freed them. Gee, tell me another fairy story, Dr. Paul.)

Meanwhile, Huckabee's hopes of picking up some of the Tancredo vote were dashed when the word got out among Tancredo's people that he really wasn't One Of Them as far as hating on the Evil Brown Reconquista Hordes went.

But for my money, the funniest news of the past week was finding out that Ron Paul has picked up the cherished Vox Day endorsement.

Vox Day is the nom de plume of prominent conservative web and local radio gadfly Theodore "Ted" Beale. His father, Robert Beale, was doing his absolute best to avoid ever paying taxes, and because of this is currently in the hoosegow. (No doubt Ron Paul's pledge to abolish the IRS resonates with Young Teddy because of the recent unpleasantness.)

Vox's endorsement was posted on Ron Paul's website on December 19, which ironically enough was the day the story broke about Ron Paul taking and keeping the contribution from Don Black.

Why 'ironically'?

Because, among other things, Voxy Ted's the guy who's referred to Barack Obama as "Hussein Osama".

You see, Young Master Ted's quite fond of expressing his blatant bigotry by dipping into the white-supremacist bag of poisonous racial stereotypes. He also says that "B. Hussein Obama" can be relied on not to "break into rap" or go around "impregnating the staff". He's told the "melanin-enhanced individuals" among us that they shouldn't talk as if they had a "mouffull of collahd motha-fuckin greenz."

But he's more than just a hater of black people. Ted's bigotry is indeed inclusive, even world-embracing; it extends to cover Jews (who he says the government should encourage, along with blacks, to have lots of abortions) and Mexican immigrants and women (he really, really, really hates women) and scientists. But he's a Good Christian, he himself says so, so it's all OK!

Just the sort of guy I'd want on my side, if I was looking to appeal to Republican primary voters. As for winning over the general-election crowd: Eh, not so much.