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 culpaon 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.

SMITH: Thereare people now, who are way out there on a limb. And I think they’re just outthere on a limb with the email they send us. Because I read it, and they are outthere. I mean, out there in a scary place…I could read a hundred of themlike this…I mean from today. People who are so amped up and soangry for reasons that are absolutely wrong, ridiculous, preposterous.”

He went on toread an email, filled with the usual paranoid “birther” nonsense,which included an admonishment to Smith. “This is, I promise, arepresentative sample of the kind of things that we get here,” Smith said.