The Uptick Rule

TPMDC's Eric Kleefield picks up what I've been warning about here for weeks, the racist commentary against Barack Obama has really exploded in July. It started in earnest with the attacks on Sonia Sotomayor, but has now elevated directly to the President.

An interesting pattern has emerged in the last few weeks, as President Obama's ratings have started to come down to Earth: You can really see a type of Obama-hatred out there that really does cross over into a purely racial territory.

This has gotten especially worse in the aftermath of Obama's comments and subsequent mea culpa on the Henry Louis Gates arrest, but the pattern has been there all the same. You can look back to the 2008 campaign, with the Jeremiah Wright controversies, the phony rumors of a tape of Michelle Obama defaming whites, and the slow but steady emergence of the Birthers. And these days, the Birthers seem to be getting more and more bellicose.

It's nothing new. How quickly we have forgotten last December...

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.

Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.

From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.

There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

Remember Ashley Todd, Michele Bachmann's McCarthyism, or the GOP Haterade machine back in October? I do. They're going for broke on the racism stuff here. All that is back and more. There's no election to backfire in their faces now. They've got it free and clear, and no consequences from the Village as they're tired of Obama already too. Remember Obama Waffles? Remember "disrespectful?" Remember "uppity?"

One of my very first posts was about The GOP Plan. Attack Obama by calling him a racist. That was back almost a year ago.

Obama is in the White House now. The Plan remains the same. It hasn't just been going on for a few weeks. It has been going on for over a year now.

It's all they have now.

[UPDATE 8:24 PM] This, also.

It has become so ingrained into them now it just leaps out, fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus.