Now that opinion pieces in The New York Times are free, we can see much of the ugly bile that rests on its pages.

Bob Herbert doesn't miss many opportunities to trash the Republican Party, which is his prerogative. But it's starting to border on hate.

The G.O.P. has spent the last 40 years insulting, disenfranchising and otherwise stomping on the interests of black Americans...

This is the party of the Southern strategy — the party that ran, like panting dogs, after the votes of segregationist whites who were repelled by the very idea of giving equal treatment to blacks. Ronald Reagan, George H.W. (Willie Horton) Bush, George W. (Compassionate Conservative) Bush — they all ran with that lousy pack.

Panting dogs! Lousy pack!

We're treated to a litany of sins. Ronald Reagan campaigned in Mississippi. What nerve! George HW Bush elevated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court - but he wasn't one of the right black people to appoint, so it was actually an insult. Herbert repeats the tired canards about the 2000 and 2004 elections. He quotes Lee Atwater as saying things in an interview with an unnamed professor that I frankly doubt he ever said.

Blacks have been remarkably quiet about this sustained mistreatment by the Republican Party.

Few blacks vote Republican. Kayne West said on national television that "George Bush hates black people." Trent Lott lost his leadership post for vaguely advocating (then-Democrat) Strom Thurmond's views. What would Herbert have black leaders do in retribution to the Republican party that they don't already do?