Hot Mic = Nutty Exchange

So Rev. Jesse Jackson made a disparaging and crude remark ("disparaging" and "crude" are the accepted media terms for this story, so I will use them too!) about Barack Obama. If you haven't seen it, check it out here. You know what's great about the rare opportunity to hear someone speak when they don't think they are on TV? The honesty and humanness of their statements. As an Obama supporter, I don't have any problem with what Jackson said, and from the sounds of it, neither does Obama. Through his spokesman Bill Burton, Barack defended his initial comments about parenting in the black community that Jackson was referring to, and then Burton added:

"He will continue to speak out about our responsibilities to ourselves and each other, and he of course accepts Reverend Jackson's apology,"

Done and done. Riiiight...

But Barack must know what it's like dealing with someone like Jackson, and the good Reverend sounded pretty comfortable using the phrase about cutting his nuts off. (You know who didn't look very comfortable? That guy sitting next to him. I'll bet people get nervous when a pissed off Jesse Jackson leans in to tell you a secret.) He probably uses language like that all of the time. So what? Most of us do when we aren't being interviewed on TV, where you are expected to use TV-interview friendly language and non-offensive, meaningless rhetoric to address complex issues in short, predetermined time segments. The media sets up these rules and then loves to act so surprised when something meant to be off-mic is heard, and Gee-whiz! People with strong opinions sound so much different in real life! That wasn't on the teleprompter at all!

Jesse Jackson is pretty irrelevant in this campaign, and some will suggest that's the source of his irritation with Obama. But that is just one of the things that will be suggested over the next couple of days to make this a bigger story than the simple fact that a grown man with strong opinions about his community disagrees with another grown man with strong opinions about his community. When did that kind of honest debate become a bad thing in this country, so that it must only be addressed after the mics are "turned off"?

But everyone knows the game, and once again the heart of this argument, which is really about family and responsibility, will become about something sinsister and provacative, and certainly hurtful when necessary. I can't wait to see how Fox turns this comment into some kind of castration ritual that fellow terrorists threaten each other with!

But again, we know the drill. Jackson apologizes publicly, uses all the key words in doing so, and those who need to distance themselves from him will publicly denounce him, as is evident below in a comment from one of Jackson's first repudiators:

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.

Did that statement come from the Obama campaign? Nope, that one came from Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

His own son.

Barack Obama doesn't have to say anything about this. Jesse Sr. has real problems now. When you attack someone who is calling for better parenting from fathers, and suddenly you become "Reverend Jackson" to the kid who used to call you "Dad", you better watch your own nuts.