Last summer, a number of advertisers boycotted Glenn Beck's FOX News show after he accused Obama of being a "racist" with a "deep seeded [sic] hatred for white people or the white culture." Since then, Beck has avoided overt race-baiting, focusing instead on Obama's affection for Marxism, progressivism, fascism, totalitarianism, and many other unsavory "isms," not to mention a few unpleasant "y's" like oligarchy, tyranny, and the Democratic Party.

But Beck was off the air today. His stand-in was right-wing radio host Chris Baker, who has a long history of airing "colorful" accusations. In addition to participating in the birther conspiracy theory, Baker has called Obama a Muslim, the anti-Christ, and "a little bitch."

Filling in on Beck's radio show today, Baker first made a head fake for the isms--"We're talking about, well, craziness of course, as usual in the march towards fascism." But then he plunged into the race narrative exactly where Beck left off. First, he informed listeners of his new nickname for Obama: President Camacho, the black gangster president in the film, Idiocracy.

Then Baker ran with Beck's white-hatred theme, asking, "Does this guy have an enemy outside of the United States of America, or is his only enemy white guys and capitalism?"

Representing President Obama as an "angry black man" has been the right wing's trick for exploiting racist sympathies without making openly racist comments. The trick works by projecting racial bigotry onto Obama in order to rationalize constituents' racism-driven antipathy. See, they don't hate Obama because he's black. They hate him because he hates white people.

A few other examples from the past couple of years:

Sean Hannity was one of the first to attack Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who epitomized the angry black man. He also invited a guest onto Hannity & Colmes who asserted that Obama's church was "more like a cult or an Aryan Brethren Church...They refer to themselves as an African people, and that somewhat disturbs me from the viewpoint of, well, do they consider themselves Americans? Do they consider themselves Christians? Are they worshipping Christ? Are they worshipping African things black?" Next, Hannity went after Michelle Obama, reporting that her senior thesis included the words, "Blacks must join in solidarity to combat a White oppressor," without mentioning that she was referring to someone else's beliefs. He then concluded, "A pattern begins to emerge. It's only fair to ask: Do the Obamas have a race problem of their own?"

In response to Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination, Rush Limbaugh asked, "How do you get promoted in a Barack Obama administration? By hating white people--or even saying you do, or that they're not good or put 'em down, whatever. Make white people the new oppressed minority, and they're going right along about it 'cause they’re shutting up. They're moving to the back of the bus. They're saying, "I can't use that drinking fountain? Okay! I can’t use that restroom? Okay!" That’s the modern day Republican Party, the equivalent of the Old South: the new oppressed minority."

And of course, Glenn Beck's boycott winner after Henry Louis Gates' arrest: "This president I think has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep seeded [sic] hatred for white people or the white culture... He has a--this guy is, I believe, a racist."

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I'm currently writing a book, How Bill O'Reilly Saved Christmas, and Other Right-Wing Persecution Fantasies, to be published in October. For more sad tales of right-wing suffering, read my persecution politics series at dagblog.com.