New York Times Editorial Board is enraged at conservative activist Marcus Epstein, denouncing him as a "white supremacist." (See Mr. Epstein's picture at right, which, being a world-class investigative journalist, I was able to unearth on MarcusEpstein.com after about 15 seconds of Googling. Maybe if Carlos Slim had given the New York Times another $200 million, the Editors would have had the journalistic resources to find it themselves.)

His thought crime? He put together a press conference on the politics of immigration last week, in which conservative intellectuals and leaders dared to suggest that running more John McCains is not the road to GOP electoral victory. As part of its Two Minutes Hate, "The Nativists Are Restless," the NYT's editorial board fulminated:

It included Bay Buchanan, former adviser to Representative Tom Tancredo and sister of Pat, who founded the American Cause and wrote ”State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America.” She was joined by James Pinkerton, an essayist and Fox News contributor who, as an aide to the first President Bush, took credit for the racist Willie Horton ads run against Michael Dukakis.

Actually, Jim Pinkerton always gives credit for first bringing up Dukakis's Willie Horton problem to Al Gore, the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

So far, so foul. But even more telling was the presence of Peter Brimelow, a former Forbes editor and founder of Vdare.com, an extremist anti-immigration Web site. It is named for Virginia Dare, the first white baby born in the English colonies, which tells you most of what you need to know. The site is worth a visit. There you can read Mr. Brimelow’s and Mr. Buchanan’s musings about racial dilution and the perils facing white people, and gems like this from Mr. Epstein:

”Diversity can be good in moderation – if what is being brought in is desirable. Most Americans don’t mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers – as long as these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.”

Ahhhh-ooooo-gahhh! Crimethink Alert! Ahhhh-ooooo-gahhh! When it comes to immigration, only extremists call for moderation!

It is easy to mock white-supremacist views as pathetic and to assume that nativism in the age of Obama is on the way out. The country has, of course, made considerable progress since the days of Know-Nothings and the Klan. But racism has a nasty habit of never going away, no matter how much we may want it to, and thus the perpetual need for vigilance.

It is all around us. Much was made of the Republican mailing of the parody song ”Barack the Magic Negro,” but the same notorious CD included ”The Star Spanglish Banner,” a puerile bit of Latino-baiting. It is easily found on YouTube. Google the words ”Bill O’Reilly” and ”white, Christian male power structure” for another YouTube taste of the Fox News host assailing the immigration views of ”the far left” (including The Times) as racially traitorous.

Beyond parody ...