A day or two before the general elections last November, my wife ran into what I’ll call a “quasi-relative” of mine and his son-in-law. They were all schmoozing harmlessly – the kids, the weather, the stock market, nuclear fission, world peace, etc. – when my quasi-relative, a rather crusty, self-assured fella in his early 70s who enjoys offering his opinions (solicited or not), asked my wife what she thought of this guy named Barack Obama. He said it with a certain amount of disgust dripping from his lips.

When my wife replied that she liked Obama, the guy went into full-attack mode and started kvetching up a storm, “joking” that they’d be “serving chitlins in the White House” if he won and warning of the Democratic candidate’s wicked, wicked “socialist” ways. (And this was well before all of the boisterous health care town hall meetings.)

My wife tends to be laid back and has a capacity to grin and bear these kinds of older guys (she’s from the Midwest, after all), but the man’s son-in-law was having none of it. “Oh, come on!” the son-in-law said, interrupting his father-in-law’s harangue. “You just don’t like him because he’s black, plain and simple.”

When my quasi-relative appeared stunned, protested vehemently and said he didn’t have a racist bone in his body – something quite hard to stomach for anyone who’s heard the man use the term “schvartze” on countless occasions and say other things that would fall under the category of bigoted “thought” – the son-in-law couldn’t stop himself from countering, “Oh, come on! Please!!”

Of course, at that moment, the son-in-law became my hero.

And that brings me to Jimmy Carter, who is definitely not my hero. But ol’ Jimmy says much of the criticism directed toward President Obama these days is based on – you’ve got it—race. (By the way, that’s an assessment that the White House says Obama does not agree with.)

“I think that an overwhelming proportion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, he’s African-American,” Carter told NBC television on Tuesday.

I hate to admit it, but Jimmy might be right.

I think we always have to be careful when using the race card when talking about, well, everything. It can be a very slippery slope. Not every time that President Obama is criticized is the result of racism, and there’s an inverted racism for liberals and others in coming to that conclusion automatically.

But I do think that Jimmy Carter – who has been so wrong in his analyses about the Middle East and other matters in recent years – is correct when he says that the specter of racism has permeated the recent overly harsh criticisms of Obama (i.e., Sen. Joe “You Lie” Wilson, the town hall meetings, the corporate bail-out condemnations, the controversy over merely telling students to work hard and stay in school).

How else do you explain this kind of rampant, white-hot vitriol and alarmism, the over-the-top hatred of this man (who by the way is a pretty likable guy) in such a short period of time? In only nine months, he’s been compared to Hitler, Che Guevera and Uncle Joe Stalin. We’re told he’s a commie, a liar, a dictator, a Nazi, an autocrat, a slick huckster – where does it end? Even presidents who got our boys and girls killed in wars that we still don’t comprehend never got treated with this kind of scorn and disrespect.

Maybe the other side of the political aisle just has a bad case of sour grapes, as has been suggested. No one likes to lose, and Sen. John McCain is undoubtedly an upstanding human being and a great patriot (but a lousy candidate). But sorry, there’s more going on here than simply sore losers or political differences.

Look at this country’s racial legacy. And then look at the overwhelming bulk of the people clamoring for Obama’s hide.

And then tell me Jimmy might not be right.

OK, now on a completely different note ...

Like many people weaned on the folk music of the ‘60s and ‘70s, I was greatly saddened to hear about Mary Travers’ passing this week, at age 72. Her group, Peter, Paul and Mary, were an inspiration to a lot of people for getting involved in social and political activism, and that will always be her legacy.

Mary’s death reminded me of two things. One of them had nothing to do with her, but I recalled once interviewing her Jewish bandmate, Peter Yarrow, as a cub reporter in the parking lot of the old Memorial Stadium.

Yarrow was one of the organizers of a “traveling rally” of activist tent-dwellers who were going from town to town for several months, to raise awareness and call on the powers of the world to ban nuclear weapons. In hindsight, the whole affair might sound a bit kooky, mawkish and crunchy-granola, but I was inspired by Yarrow and the hundreds of other activists there who were so committed to that cause (and to our children’s future) that they gave a chunk of their lives to it. That kind of activism, passion and selflessness just doesn’t seem to exist or resonate today.

The other thing I recall is how Mary Travers was so unceremoniously dumped from the performing lineup for the historic December 1987 rally in Washington for Soviet Jewry. The reason: organizers were warned that with Travers being a female, many traditional Jewish rally-goers wouldn’t show up because of restrictions against hearing women sing. The wind-up was the rally was a major success and helped usher in a new era, but Mary wasn’t there singing. (And I was there, looking for her.)

I understand the organizers’ sensitivities in this matter, but this was Mary Travers we’re talking about here, a person who among her many other human rights and social justice causes was a vocal and ardent supporter for the freedom of Soviet Jews. As I recall, Mary was reportedly pretty understanding about the whole thing, but it still bothers me to this day.

Mary Travers deserved better. May her memory (and legacy) always be a blessing.