Don't Cut Off The Senator's Microphone

On Father's Day, Barack Obama said at the Apostolic Church of God: ``Any fool can have a child. That doesn't make you a father. Too many fathers are AWOL, missing from too many lives and too many homes.''
On July 6, Jesse Jackson said that the Illinois senator was "talking down to black people'' in his recent speeches, and furthermore, he had a very crude suggestion about what he might do to keep that from happening anymore. Though Jesse insisted that he was unaware that his microphone was turned on, Fox News (We Report, You Deride) managed to get it all over the airwaves where the remarks have spawned a life of their own. Jackson's remarks are looking to settle down in the Texas Panhandle, raise some crops and have a few little remarks.
As a media event, it most certainly begins to set the tone for what will be a very dicey six months. At one moment, we are asked to be color-blind, because it is the politically correct thing to do. Then suddenly we are forced to confront the racial divides that continue to exist in our country.
No one plays this game better than the Reverend Jesse Jackson. This is the guy who first asked us to "Keep hope alive" back in the eighties when he was running for President of the United States. This is the same guy who wore a bloody shirt for days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, it was Doctor King's blood. Crude yes, but effective. It got him noticed.
And now, twenty years after his last campaign for President, forty years since that tragic day in Memphis, Jesse is still stirring the pot. It's what he does. Just like accepting the nomination in a football stadium, it's great theater. "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,'' said Mark Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University. The cynic in me winces in anticipation of what comes next. The Democrat in me can't wait for more.