G. Frink's

The "earthquake" former President Bill Clinton had in mind wasn't Sen. Barack Obama's triumph in a contest that may have aroused Tar Heel pride enough to turn North Carolina electoral blue once more.

The Democratic primary became a war for the Tar Heel soul and an insult to Tar Heel pride when Republicans fired from that well-polished cannon of racist smear, and were answered by withering fire from the generations who have had enough.

That would have been the battle front had Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain not made a failing gesture at forbidding use of the ad, thus telling us all he believes we're too dumb to know a ruse on sight.

You may search from the pine forests, deep swamps and tobacco fields where I was born to the university lecture halls near me as I write and through the mountain tops, gorges and hollows of the west.

You will find Tar Heels in all of their wonderful variety.

What you will not find is one who misunderstood the twin Republican insults.

McCain and his party think we are too weak-minded to understand the strategies of contempt which they tried to use once more during this primary, and too weak-willed to stand up for ourselves and defeat those strategies.

We are neither.