Fox Business Network's Eric Bolling is taking a lot of heat for this performance from last Friday, in which he called Gabonese president Ali Bongo, who had recently visited the White House, “a hoodlum in the hizzouse,” and inexplicably linked Bongo's visit to the rapper Common's appearance at a White House poetry event in May. It was the second time in less than a month that Bolling had attacked Obama using racial stereotypes; during Obama's state trip to Ireland, Bolling also said the president was “chugging a few 40s” instead of tending to tornado-ravaged towns in Missouri.

That Bolling would use his Fox News pedestal to deploy racially tinged attacks against the president is monstrous. But it's not surprising, given that Bolling is a late convert to the birther movement.

After the president released his long-form birth certificate in April, Bolling put together an obscene segment for his Fox Business program, Follow The Money, in which he proudly declared his birther curiosity:

BOLLING: We haven't touched this birth certificate issue since it began. We haven't touched it, but there is a legitimate question as to whether or not the president of the United States is allowed to be president of the United States. It is written in the constitution. You have to be a natural born citizen of America. I mean, it's an issue.

JUAN WILLIAMS: No, it isn't an issue, Eric. This issue has been settled since he was running for president even when he's in the Senate and produced the short form for people. Just never been an issue.

It's been something that has been elevated to some kind of -- they've used this as a surrogate I think to belittle the president. People who don't like his policies who think that they never voted for him, how can this guy be president. It is racially tinged. It is a damaging subject.

BOLLING: I just have tell you for purposefully, we didn't touch it because we didn't think it was an issue until I saw this document. When I saw the green border, the Photoshop border around the birth certificate, I said wait a minute.

This thing isn't a pure copy from a book, a ledger from Hawaii. This thing has been altered. Someone's playing with it. Once that came out, I said we have to at least ask the question Juan.That's all. We're not claiming it is ill legit whatever, but someone is playing around with this document. [Follow The Money, 4/27/2011, via Nexis]

Later in the same episode, Bolling conducted some “forensic analysis” of a large-scale blow-up of Obama's birth certificate with the assistance of Pamela Geller, an extremist Islamophobic bigot and leader of the birther movement.

That Bolling is given airtime on Fox Business to promote this race-baiting swill is bad enough. What's worse is that he's rumored to be among the candidates to fill the high profile 5 p.m. Fox News timeslot soon to be vacated by Glenn Beck.

Beck's own record on racial issues isn't exactly commendable. But at least he's not a birther.