In his new column, “Friendship And The GOP’s Touched Reality,” Gene Lyons implores us to remember the distinction between caricatures and human beings:

Like sex, politics makes almost everybody stupid. With a presidential election in the offing, Americans are increasingly inclined to divide into rival tribes contemptuous of the “other.” It often seems that the higher the stakes, the more foolish the national dialogue.

Sometimes it feels as if we’re living in Jonathan Swift’s Lilliput, with Big-Endians perennially at war with Little-Endians over the proper way to open a soft-boiled egg. Of course, Swift himself engaged in furious political and religious controversy all his life. He could also laugh at himself.

But hold that thought.