MICHAEL BARONE: The Post’s campaign to ‘Macaca’ McDonnell takes a new tack. “Amy Gardner’s story and the Post’s placement of it on the front could be used in journalism schools as a classic example of a newspaper using its news pages to affect the outcome of an election. On the front page it suggests that McDonnell is the kind of bigoted person its targeted audience—the culturally liberal voters of Northern Virginia in the Post’s circulation area—would never want to vote for, while the exculpatory material is buried on page A16, above the Mattress Discounter and Clyde’s Restaurant Group ads.” They’re so transparent. Remember, it’s a “smear” if you report the truth about a Democrat.

And maybe Clyde’s and Mattress Discounters will hear from some readers.