Good news, readers. The New York Times has decided to torpedo Hillary’s campaign and help Obama. Hence we get this article on today’s Page One which purports to explain “Clinton’s Gradual Education on Issues of Race,” but really is a vehicle for laying out the case for Hillary being a lot less enlightened than she might be. And to drive home that point, the Times dredges up an old letter in which Hillary wrote to a mentor about working with “underprivileged Negroes,” and the editors make sure this word gets put right up top, like a big red flag, right in the second paragraph of the story, way before the jump.

Hillary used the word in a letter she wrote during her time at Wellesley — and she graduated in 1969. Now, I’m not as old as Hillary, but I’m pretty sure the word “Negro” was not the greatest choice at that time. I know it would not have gone over well if someone had used it when I was at Reed in 1972. Certainly it rings pretty offensive now. Other than Quentin Tarantino, is there anyone who uses it? I mean, I’m no expert on this subject. I don’t actually know any black people, and I certainly don’t have any working close to me, but from what I’ve read the word has some bad connotations, and while not as offensive as the other N word it’s definitely not the word you want hanging in the front of everyone’s mind every time you walk into a big gathering of black people. Which it now will be.

The best you could say is that this reference makes Hillary look really, really old — like old enough to have been alive during a time when the word “Negro” was considered acceptable. Yeah, she’s the candidate for “change,” all right. Christ. I bet even McCain never used the word “Negro,” and he was born in the late 1800s.

Word from our sources inside the Times is that the top brass blew a gasket when Bill went around race-baiting Obama recently and they decided to go to the mattresses. If the Clintstones want to play with fire, then fine, let’s play with fire, seems to be what they’re thinking. They figure they can pry away all those black leaders like Andrew Young who keep jumping through hoops to pretend Bill is one of their own by pointing out that, um, Bill is married to a white girl from “the palest of Chicago suburbs” (line one of the story) who is less than 80 years old and yet still once used the word “Negro” when referring to African-Americans. Basically, they want to embarrass black leaders into siding with Obama.

See, the reporters love Obama. He’s totally won them over. And they hate Hillary. This piece is a shot across her bow. In addition to that stuff up top, down below they’ve got people saying that Bill Clinton’s record on civil rights is “more mixed than people generally acknowledge,” as one expert puts it. They mention that Hillary worked for Barry Goldwater, which “is about as close to original sin as I can imagine,” says an African-American law school dean. Then they wrap up with Lani Guinier taking a shot at Hillary and explaining why she’s supporting Obama.

And for good measure they toss in that extremely flattering photo. We all knew that young woman when we were in college, right? She was the one sitting in the front row, impatient with her classmates, sighing and pulling faces and rolling her eyes whenever anyone asks a question, always arguing with the professor and disputing every point and launching into long mini-lectures of her own on the material, completely convinced that she, not the professor, should be teaching the class.

Folks, if this woman becomes president we are in for eight years of hell. I’m so glad to see the Times has decided to kneecap her.