On Wednesday’s O’Reilly Factor, racism emerged from its gauzy hiding place at the edge of the immigration reform debate. Have a look at this excerpt from Bill O’ Reilly’s interview with Senator John McCain.
O’REILLY: Do you think there’s a racism thing involved in this? Linda Chaves, one of our contributors who you know very well…
MCCAIN: Yes.
O’REILLY: …wrote a column on townhall.com and said, you know, there’s a number of Americans who just don’t like Latinos. And that’s what the opposition is all about there. Do you believe that?
MCCAIN: I do know this, that there’s …

With America at war in Iraq, at war on terror and possibly facing a renewed Cold War, it would be easy to dismiss the intercultural and interracial battles we slog through here at home as insignificant. But it is precisely because of America’s position in the world right now that a spirit of fairness on the homefront is increasingly important. The last thing America needs at this juncture is for racial and cultural discord to be at so high a pitch that it shatters the common ground many of us are looking for as …