a quick note about "red-baiting"

A piece on Salon today really pissed me off. Apparently, Bill Kristol has been comparing Obama's statement about depressed rural people clinging to guns or intolerance to Marx's statement about religion being the opiate of the masses. Leaving aside the sheer ridiculousness of that comparison, which whoever the Salon writer was did a good job of, I'd like to point out one little detail. THE COLD WAR ENDED TWENTY YEARS AGO! COMMUNISM IS NOT A THREAT! SOCIALISM IS NOT A THREAT! THERE IS NO RED SCARE! GET OVER IT!