In the long run, Putin s baiting of the West may turn out to be as self defeating as Saakashvili s baiting of Russia. But in the short run there is a real danger that Russia will pursue its age old aspiration of becoming part of Europe by seeking to become the dominant entity.

In the current presidential election campaign, the Democratic Party is attacking Obama s Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, on the same specious grounds, with a complacent media acquiescing in the Democrats de facto India baiting.

And the customer of the Maidan is the Ukrainian people, not The New York Times. If nationalists believe that they will not curry favor with Ukrainians by Jew baiting, that is a welcome development.

It is true that 70 years ago Russian nationalism served Stalin s totalitarianism in the righteous cause of defeating Hitler s totalitarianism. It is also true that Russia today is as free of overt manifestations of anti Semitism as Ukraine is, largely because Putin s hostility to Jew baiting is well known and duly noted.

Rajapaksa s unexpected defeat by a coalition of Sri Lanka s democrats and Tamil political parties in last January s presidential election a result that he then sought to annul should have ended both his career and the politics of race baiting. But the former president is now mounting a furious comeback bid and might well win the parliamentary election scheduled for August 17.

The conservative ARENA party, which has governed El Salvador since the country s 10 year civil war ended in 1992, did everything possible to prevent an FMLN victory, resorted, once again, to every red baiting trick in the book. According to ARENA s relentlessly negative campaign, a triumph for the left would bring communism, Hugo Chávez, and the Castro brothers to San Salvador.