Opinion: In today’s pages: McCain the polarizer?, Lincoln-Douglas debates, remembering John Robert McGraham

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Are John McCain and Sarah Palin stoking the fires of polarization and bigotry, or are such accusations just a canard that liberals have been using against conservatives for generations? The Times editorial board and columnist Jonah Goldberg take starkly different positions on that issue today.

In the third installment of its ‘Position Papers for the Next President’ series, The Times argues that the next president will be tasked with bridging partisan divisions and slowing the ‘decline of civility’ that afflicts modern American culture. ‘This campaign is more crass and more virulent because McCain made it so,’ the editorial states, blaming the GOP candidate for the xenophobic attitudes of some of his supporters. To Goldberg, meanwhile, such notions reflect the hypocrisy of liberals who decry McCain’s backers for calling Democrat Barack Obama a terrorist while ignoring the intolerance of Obama supporters who put ‘Abort Sarah Palin’ bumper stickers on their cars.

Speaking of undignified campaigns, English professor Gillian Silverman says modern presidential debates have got nothing on the famous contest between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858 -- in those days, politicians really knew how to fire up the crowd. And homeless services expert Joel John Roberts and English teacher Charles E. Diaz give their perspectives on John Robert McGraham, a Los Angeles homeless man who was doused with gasoline and set on fire last week. Roberts says we can avoid such tragedies with better homeless programs, while Diaz remembers the panhandler who taught him a lesson about human dignity. Finally, back on the editorial page, The Times finds for the defense in a Supreme Court case against Philip Morris USA, which it says is being wrongfully accused of unfairly marketing ‘light’ cigarettes.

*Illustration by Roman Genn / For the Times