Whipping Up a Crisis -- from R.C. Longworth in the Chicago Tribune:
National hysterias come and go, leaving a great deal of damage and creating a sense of communal shame when the panic wears off: The McCarthyite era is an example. Invariably, the cause is fear--of foreigners, of nameless threats, of Reds under the bed.

The United States is going through such a hysteria now. We can only pray that not too many lives are sacrificed to it. (Full article.)