{"id":16147,"date":"2008-07-10T08:15:19","date_gmt":"2008-07-10T12:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16147.html"},"modified":"2008-07-10T08:15:19","modified_gmt":"2008-07-10T12:15:19","slug":"jesse-jackson-gets-a-little-nutty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/jesse-jackson-gets-a-little-nutty\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesse Jackson gets a little nutty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even seasoned veterans, who’ve done countless interviews, sometimes forgets to watch what they say around live microphones. Take Jesse Jackson<\/a>, for example.<\/p>\n

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If you can’t watch the clip, and in the unlikely event you haven’t seen the clip elsewhere, Jackson was in the Fox News studio on Sunday, and privately whispered his disapproval of Barack Obama’s Father’s Day speech, when Obama told a Chicago church congregation that “we need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn’t just end at conception.”<\/p>\n

Unaware that his comments were being filmed and recorded, Jackson said he didn’t want Obama “talking down to black people,” adding, “I want to cut his nuts out.”<\/p>\n

When Bill O’Reilly announced that he would air the off-the-record remarks, and Drudge started pushing the story, Jackson quickly tried to get in front of the story and issued a public apology<\/a>: “For any harm or hurt that this hot mic private conversation may have caused, I apologize. My support for Senator Obama\u2019s campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal. I cherish this redemptive and historical moment.”<\/p>\n

Over the course of about an hour, the flurry of events was fast and furious. Fox News pushed its “scoop”; traditional news outlets scrambled<\/a> to treat this as a major development; Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) blasted his father’s comments (the congressman said<\/a>, “I thoroughly reject and repudiate his ugly rhetoric. He should keep hope alive and any personal attacks and insults to himself”); and the Obama campaign accepted the reverend’s apology and sought to move on.<\/p>\n

Does any of this matter?
\n
\nIf the question is whether Jackson’s private criticism is going to hurt Obama, I think the answer is clearly no. In fact, it gave Obama a chance to reiterate his message<\/a> of personal responsibility.<\/p>\n

“As someone who grew up without a father in the home, Senator Obama has spoken and written for many years about the issue of parental responsibility, including the importance of fathers participating in their children’s lives. He also discusses our responsibility as a society to provide jobs, justice, and opportunity for all. He will continue to speak out about our responsibilities to ourselves and each other, and he of course accepts Reverend Jackson’s apology,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, Obama’s message isn’t going to change, whether Jackson approves or not. And as Ed Kilgore noted<\/a>, “To be politically crude about it, it’s hard to imagine that Barack Obama, whose African-American support is rock-solid, is going to be hurt by an off-the-record complaint by Jesse Jackson that he’s being too morally demanding, particularly as reported by Fox News.”<\/p>\n

But there’s also the question of whether this might help<\/i> Obama. Andrew Sullivan said<\/a>, “Obama gets his Sistah Souljah moment handed to him on a plate … by Bill O’Reilly.” Bloomberg ran a report, saying<\/a>, “The comments may turn out to help Obama by emphasizing his call for personal responsibility, a favorite topic of Republicans, said Mark Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. ‘It reinforces Obama’s effort to present himself as an advocate of responsible personal behavior, a position that Republican candidates like to secure as uniquely their own,’ Rozell said.”<\/p>\n

Ultimately, I suspect the hullabaloo will soon pass, but I think there are two broader angles to keep in mind. First, I can’t help but think this is a reminder of a political\/generational shift. Jackson’s the old guard; Obama’s the new guard. There’s bound to be some tension.<\/p>\n

And second, it serves as yet another reminder for political figures everywhere: treat every mic as a live mic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even seasoned veterans, who’ve done countless interviews, sometimes forgets to watch what they say around live microphones. Take Jesse Jackson, for example. If you can’t watch the clip, and in the unlikely event you haven’t seen the clip elsewhere, Jackson was in the Fox News studio on Sunday, and privately whispered his disapproval of Barack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}