From the beginning, the current controversy has been a Rupert Murdoch operation. The allegation that Hillary Clinton used ethnic invective against a campaign worker appears in a book published by HarperCollins, one of the many enterprises in the right-wing press lord's News Corp. conglomerate. (Earlier this year, HarperCollins also published and heavily promoted Peggy Noonan's hardcover screed, "The Case Against Hillary Clinton," placing enormous posters strategically in bookstores around the state.) The alleged ethnic slur first surfaced as a "world exclusive" in the Drudge Report, but was almost instantly picked up and headlined on Page 1 by the Post. In that awful moment, the Murdoch technique crystallized perfectly for the first time in this campaign.

It wasn't the first instance when the Post had attacked the Democratic nominee with a slanted front-page headline, of course. Just a few weeks ago, the paper drew its own tendentious conclusions from the Travel Office report issued by the Office of Independent Counsel (which had grudgingly exonerated her) -- and summarized them opposite a suitably unflattering photograph of Hillary Clinton in 3-inch tabloid type: GOOD LIAR. That bold-faced epithet was relatively mild compared to the daily descriptions of the first lady in the Post over the past six years as a witch, a Lady Macbeth, a unindicted felon, a probable conspirator in the death of her friend Vince Foster and a horse thief.

But a truly effective Post political offensive always extends past mere bias into the ethnic inflammation that Murdoch long ago adopted as a circulation booster and ideological weapon. As Thomas Kiernan explained years ago in his classic biography "Citizen Murdoch," the Post has historically employed racial rhetoric and imagery in its coverage not only to sell papers but to promote its political viewpoint.

"Murdochism thrived on overt appeals to ethnic biases in the journalistic prosecution of its right-wing ideology," wrote Kiernan, who knew Murdoch well. While it seems darkly amusing that the Post editors now pose as outraged defenders of decency, that is the sort of contradiction that has never fazed the tabloid's owner or his eager minions.

So what else is new? Only the increasingly easy penetration of other media by Murdoch's stratagems, assisted as they now are by additional properties such as the Fox News Channel. His lame competitors at the New York Daily News took the bait right away, and played into his plan by promoting the "Jew bastard" story -- which might otherwise have disappeared after a single day.

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