Glenn Beck's recent assertion that President Obama is a racist had a familiar ring to it. It brought to mind the first time I became aware of Beck after stumbling upon his old Headline News show. He said on his radio show:
"[Obama's] very white in many ways," Beck said, "Gee, can I even say that? Can I even say that without somebody else starting a campaign saying, 'What does he mean, "He's very white?" ' He is. He's very white."
Update:
As Think Progress noted at the time, Glenn Beck agrees that saying Obama is "acting white" is "an unbelievable racist statement"...when a black guy says it.
Beck seemed aware that he was pushing the limits with his comments. In the context of the Presidential campaign they seemed designed to undermine any appeal voters black and white might have towards voting for the "first African-American president" by questioning his bonafides in that department, intimating that because his mother was white and he was raised by his white grandparents, he wasn't "really" black.
The reason for this, even at the time, was obvious. Beck feared that the African-American community, notoriously Democratic, might mobilize in giant numbers if given the chance to vote for the first African-American President and give then-primary candidate Obama an edge in November should he become the nominee (a common assertion before Obama won.)
This stood out to me at the time because it was so clear that Beck saw Obama's race as a potential asset and sought to cancel it out by painting him as "white in many ways." He was not questioning or understanding an issue of race, but creating one anew, hoping to enter this notion to enter the public discussion. He was after all aware of how controversial the comment was:
"I guarantee you, there will be blogs today that will have me being a racist because I say that."
Glenn is either psychic, or he recognized that saying something racist could lead people to say you said something racist.
But what makes this prior incident so insidious in light of Beck's recent comments is that he's turned from trying to dampen African-American mobilization behind Obama by calling him "very white" (which didn't work very well last time) to instead mobilize white voters against Obama by saying that now he's not only black, but racist against white people!. Before he was Uncle Tom, now he's Louis Farrakhan.
I think reminding people of Beck's comments two years ago in the context of what he wanted to happen then (black voters, stay home) contrasted with his comments this week and desired effect (white people, fear the black president) is important to highlight the level of manipulation, blatant contradiction, and, yes, racism Beck has displayed in both incidents while attempting to achieve different ends.