Just like the old days

The 2008 Presidential election will mark a turning point in American politics: turning back the clock to 1950, that is. Opportunistic, nativist ignorati like Michele Bachmann and Robin Hayes channel Joe McCarthy at his most inflammatory and dangerous, as they demand investigations to "ferret out" godless, America-hating liberals who are "inciting class warfare" against all the helpless Joe the Plumbers cowering behind their backsplashes.

And while the McCain campaign and its surrogates, like the obnoxious, retrograde Rush Limbaugh, lace their propaganda with poisonous, racist bombast, their increasingly agitated crowds are taking matters into their own hands. It was horrifying enough when neither McCain nor Palin challenged their audiences who yelled in response to their Obama taunts: "Kill him!" or "Off with his head!" The McCain campaign insisted that those are just harmless words shouted by red-blooded patriots. No harm, no foul. Right?

Then explain the pigeon-chested bigot proudly hanging an effigy of Obama in his front yard, complete with Star of David painted on its head (Muslim, Jew . . . whatever)? Explain why an African-American restaurateur and Obama supporter came to work to find vandals had painted swastikas, "White Power", "N----R", and "Vote MaKain" on his building.

Yesterday, North Carolina voters lining up to cast their ballots early were heckled and harrassed by McCain protesters outside the polling station. The protesters shouted such self-unaware gems as "Sundays are for church, not voting!" [As Eli noted in email, "I like how they skipped church to heckle voters for skipping church."]

Pam Spaulding reported this morning that"someone slashed the tires of at least 30 vehicles parked outside the Crown Coliseum on Sunday during a rally for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama."

And now this:

CULLOWHEE – A dead bear was found dumped this morning on the Western Carolina University campus, draped with a pair of Obama campaign signs, university police said.

Maintenance workers reported about 7:45 a.m. finding a 75-pound bear cub dumped at the roundabout near the Catamount statute at the entrance to campus, said Tom Johnson, chief of university police.

“It looked like it had been shot in the head as best we can tell. A couple of Obama campaign signs had been stapled together and stuck over its head,” Johnson said.

A bear cub. A BLACK bear cub. Jesus Ignatius Christ, how much more anger is the McCain camp willing to foster before this behavior manifests itself in even greater carnage? Will John McCain still whimper that he is being unfairly likened to George Wallace because he cannot control his lizard-brained followers nowthat he's set them afire?

Or will he finally embrace the monstrous Balrog that he, his running mate, and his campaign have unleashed on the rest of America?