KKK McCain Chasing Obama in Halloween Display

This is about right. Republicans are repeatedly accused of injecting race and hatred into the presidential election contest. Yet only Democrats seem to be actually doing it: Congressmen Meeks and Lewis, Obama himself, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, and the list goes on.

And now we have an Obama supporter putting up a Halloween display with McCain in a KKK robe chasing a running Barack Obama. Imagine if a Republican supporter of McCain put up a display of Obama in a loincloth with a spear in his hand, or something equally repugnant. The uproar would be deafening. But in this case, the silence is deafening.

Ron Havens, an avowed supporter of Barack Obama, is the guy responsible for the display, which features an Obama figure that "...looks like he is running," and a McCain figure "...dressed in the hooded robe of the Ku Klux Klan" and wielding a baseball bat.

"Havens is quick to point out," the report says, "he is a liberal and a big supporter of Obama, and that the scene is meant to provoke thought about the way he believes Obama has been unfairly treated by the McCain campaign." Who's being treated unfairly here?

The story quotes Havens as saying, "I figured it would be equally offensive to everyone. It's just for shock value. McCain has been rabble-rousing, calling Obama a terrorist and a Muslim." Let's be clear: McCain has never called Obama a terrorist or a Muslim. This is a whole new level of ignorance.

Apparently this is not something new for Havens, either. But the reports of his past displays are not as over the top as this year's offering. The story cites Georgia Verdier, president of the Elmira-Corning Branch of the NAACP, as saying "she was concerned about the injection of race." But Verdier, went on, the display seemed "innocuous enough." I can't help but wonder if she would have felt that way if the situation was reversed.

Verdier is quoted as saying, "It looks friendly but I am concerned not so much about this display, but in general about the fear and hate that have entered the campaign. This display appears friendly to me." Here's a newsflash for Ms. Verdier: there's nothing friendly about the display at all. It suggests racial violence on the part of McCain, directed against Senator Obama. Yes, fear and hate have entered the campaign. But the fear and hate we are seeing is being peddled not by Republicans, but by the left.