Rev Jesse Jackson matters, just not how he thinks he does. Oh, I am sure that he still has a following. And influence. But he is more important for the negative impression so many Whites - including many liberal Whites, not just Conservatives and moderates - have of him.
Politically Obama has been convincing the American populus that he really is a centrist - and is willing to piss off some of his netroots as price. His initial ad buy (very cynically I think) heavily promoted images of him with the White side of his family. This will play better than those silly ads, is free, and will do more to reassure those made nervous by the whole Rev. Wright affair. While McCain continues to try to shore up his Right flank Obama is claiming the middle ground and inadvertently the Rev. Jackson has helped him do so.
You say that as if there was any other side to show. That was the family that raised him and that was the only family he ever really had. That is authentically his background. What else was he going to show, biological relatives in Kenya that he never had any contact with? Every politician shows his family background. The “white side” was the only side for Barack in terms of genuine familal relationships. His father wasn’t around. I don’t see how that commercial was cynical.
Don’t you just know that whatever tech first realized the mikes were on and recording must have wet himself with glee? (“I’m getting three more personal days for this one easy.”)
a) Jesse Jackson has been very big on the African American community taking responsibility for boot-strapping itself.
b) Jesse Jackson, since he carries the non-title (it’s an adjective, not a title) Reverend, is a minister, and he’s pissed about Obama talking about faith?
I have to believe that some of this is more because Obama is succeeding where he did not, which to some extent is a matter of timing and to some extent is a matter of Obama being more centrist. But it must be hard to see someone come along 20-30 years later, say many of the same things you said, and have the new guy practically be labelled as the second coming. Sorry, Jesse. Like comedy, politics is all about timing, except that you have much less control over the timing in politics.
BTW, Jesse Jackson, Jr has repudiated his father’s statements way more angrily.
Ron Reagan Jr. said even he never said anything that fierce to his dad while his dad was in office, although I certainly would have if Ronald Reagan had been my dad. But apparently Jackson Sr has felt really, really bad about it, and has been desperately trying to apologize ever since.
Anticipated impact: anywhere from minimal to very good for Obama, depending on how much press it gets. It’s lovely of FOX to play it up for us.
Maybe. But I would bet if we added up all the minutes the story is on Fox (equals “X”), and all the minutes the story is on CNN (equals “Y”)…whaddaya think, X = 2Y? 3Y?
Actually, Jackson didn’t say 'something about how the senator was “going to get his (twin objects of male anatomy) cut off.” Nor did he say, as he ‘recalls’: “The senator is cutting off his you-know-what with black people.”
What he actually said was “I wanna cut his nuts off.” Cite
Most unbecoming language for a supposed man of the cloth, I must say.
Sorry for going O.T., but Reagan Jr. to be one of the most “offensive just in his very existence” people on Earth. The big difference in Jackson Jr. and Reagan Jr. is that Jackson Jr. used his famous name as a stepping stone for a political career while Reagan Jr. just used his famous name for whatever scraps it could get him. I understand he was a good dancer back in the day but he seems to have given himself over to mediocre journalism and failed “dead president’s namesake son” talk shows. Also, while I wouldn’t imagine Jesse Sr. is exactly living on air, he has a lot of kids (that we know about it) and expenses and at 67 is good for possibly many more years, while Reagan Jr. is separated from probably well over $100 mill dollars only by one frail 87 year old woman who is high priestess of his father’s cult, so probably not a real good idea to say anything remotely negative about Ronald Augustus that [del]Livia[/del]Nancy hasn’t said first.
It’s going to be really interesting to see what happens with him when Nancy dies and he inherits (or doesn’t, but either way is free). I wouldn’t be surprised to see him spending the rest of his life endorsing Nader and going on the White Party circuit.
As far as impact, I think its main will be to undermine whatever credibility Jackson Sr. has left after his various grandstanding, misspeaks, infidelities, various allegations of financial misdoings and most of all his increasing irrelevance. I think even though he’s not an elected official and is the polar opposite of of the Bush regime on the political spectrum he’s nevertheless included with the “politics as usual” paradigm (phoniness, self-promotion first and all else a distant second, etc.) as much as Bush/Cheney and the Clintons, and he knows it. The fact his own son just castrated him and tossed his own nuts into the sea should just sort of cement it for him.
I worked in a hotel Jesse Sr. stayed at back in the late '80s. The man makes an entrance like Christ riding on a donkey- extremely charismatic, personable, when he talks to you he looks directly into your eyes, an obvious extreme intelligence in person that doesn’t always translate on camera- and I remember some girls, black and white and about 9 or 10 years old probably- there with some GS or Brownies type function- literally screaming when they saw him as if they’d seen a rock star walk in; he posed for pics with them and their chaperones and signed autographs and they stood in line to call their parents on the phone to say “JESSE JACKSON’S STAYING HERE!” They couldn’t have been more excited if it’d been New Kids on the Block (or whatever other groups were hot at the time).
Harvey Korman once said about the kids he fathered in his 50s years after THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW that “they’re way too young to have any idea who I am… or was”. I was just thinking today that Jesse’s youngest, who’s now about 9 years old herself like the girls who screamed when they saw him, will likely grow up way too young to know who her father is or was. I wonder how many kids today would know him as anything other than a name they’ve heard and a South Park reference.
Sad really, but again I think he’s in the liberal part of the “out with the old, we want something new” sweep that could well happen in November. He may be a socio-political Norma Desmond trotted out once in a while to thunderous applause to get an award and then quickly gotten off the dais and forgotten. Same with many others, most of them for the better. Jesse though reminds me of Drummond’s eulogy for Brady in INHERIT THE WIND: “A giant once lived in that body” but he moved away from relevance “by standing still”. Or maybe I just like quoting that movie.
At first I wondered what there was to apologize for. Obama was definitely shifting to the center. BUT it’s a far cry from “he’s cutting his nuts off” to “I’d like to cut his nuts off”. :eek:
I don’t know much of anything about R.R. Jr except that politically he was opposed to Dad and he was on MSNBC last night (as an analyst, not as an interviewee) and asked this question directly. So it wasn’t that he was going around volunteering this - he was directly asked this question as the son of a political figure - he answered “It was farther than I ever went, although we certainly had our disagreements!” or something along those lines. He was smiling ruefully as he said it. There was no venom.
Great. Now I’ll be seeing Jesse Jackson saying “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeVille.” all day. Thanks a bunch.
Ron Sr was talking to son Michael and lamenting how Junior had brought his girlfriend, Rick Nelson’s widow Kristen, to weekend at the White House while Dad and Nancy were at the Western White House. Michael said, “Well, at least it means he’s not gay,” that being counter to the idle musings of millions.
Ron Sr replied, “Don’t let Nancy hear you say that!”
I do not know if he meant that Nancy would be angry that Michael, the spawn of Jane Wyman, was making fun of her son or that she would be disappointed that her son was straight.
And don’t get me started on Nancy’s Hollywood reputation before she married and went all Livia. Think more Messalina. Me, I’ll just get lost in reverie imagining a MILF Jello wrestling match between Fawn Hall and Cyndi McCain. (thinking) No, Jello would accentuate their wrinkles. Make it pudding. It’s like Spackle, only tastier.
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Jesse really has been panting for a cabinet-level position in the upcoming Obama regime. I figure he should be “human rights” commisioner, or head of the Dept. of Education.
Sadly (for him0 this little gaffe will make his appointment difficult!
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