Jackson remarks: Calculated or crazy?
Did Jesse Jackson make a major blunder earlier this week when he made some off-color comments about Barack Obama that were caught on tape? Or was the entire thing carefully calculated; a fabricated spoof to help Obama among undecideds?
While waiting to go on air at Fox News Channel, Jackson whispered to another guest that Obama was “talking down” to black people, and that he would like to “cut [Obama's] nuts off.” The comments were aired on Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor Wednesday evening. By the time the comments were actually aired, they had already made news coast-to-coast . . . from the blogosphere to the network newscasts.
In a twist that was borderline absurd, the comments-to-come first made news when Jackson called CNN to offer a preemptive apology. Fox, the cable network would later reveal, had contacted both Jackson and the Obama campaign after an intern discovered the comments while transcribing the show segment overnight.
Shortly after Jackson’s apology was aired on CNN, a strongly-worded smack-down was issued by — of all people — Jackson’s son, Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr.:
I’m deeply outraged and disappointed in Reverend Jackson’s reckless statements about Senator Barack Obama. His divisive and demeaning comments about the presumptive Democratic nominee — and I believe the next president of the United States — contradict his inspiring and courageous career. …Instead of tearing others down, Barack Obama wants to build the country up and bring people together so that we can move forward, together — as one nation. The remarks like those uttered on Fox by Reverend Jackson do not advance the campaign’s cause of building a more perfect Union.
The pundits are in agreement: Jackson’s words likely helped Obama validate his campaign among undecided voters. The comments help Obama distance himself from the Jackson-Sharpton fringe movement and establish himself as something other than “just another black politician.” A sort of Sister Souljah moment in a round-about way, as a blogger put it earlier today.
So, the question that begs asking is this: Did Jackson, with his television background and knowledge of the inner workings of news TV (never, ever assume the mic is turned off . . . because it rarely is), make an incredibly foolish blunder? Or was the entire thing cooly calculated? Was Jackson called upon to fall on his sword for the Obama camp? Is the Obama camp vaguely playing the race card, fooling the 99.9% of legitimate political bloggers, who haven’t pounced upon the possibility (however slim the possibility may be)?