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Thursday, July 10, 2008
Jesse is Obama’s Sister Souljah
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Barack Obama is either lucky, living right or the beneficiary of the proper alignment of the stars.
Within a week he’s gone from being the flaming, unelectable George Soros liberal to a center-drifting candidate actively repositioning himself toward the mainstream. By October it’s possible that he could be to the right of John McCain on some issues and in agreement on others — the war in Iraq, for example. Really, all Obama has to do is become McCain’s sound-chamber twin and he wins. He’s far more eloquent — with the teleprompters, at least — and he inspires a celebrity’s cult-like following. Mirror McCain’s positions, with a little vagueness here and there to appease the Red Guard of the Democratic left, and glitz wins.
The point is that the Obama of March and the Obama of October will be very different. If campaign handlers can better-script Michelle Obama and keep Barack from rambling off topic, the stars — or rather the states — could align for him.
Jesse Jackson, either accidentally or intentionally, gave Obama a major boost this weekend while speaking before a Fox network microphone he allegedly thought had been turned off. Jesse Jackson is a performer who can smell an open microphone with greater precision than a Georgia state trooper can smell a stash of marijuana in a closed trunk. Besides that, he’s been before so many that he knows they’re never off. Methinks his gift to the Obama campaign was to be Obama’s Sister Souljah.
Speaking to another guest after a Fox News Channel interview Sunday, Jackson said that Obama’s “lectures” at black churches about moral issues amounted to “talking down to black people.” Jackson thinks Obama should be talking about “what we need really” and that is “social justice and urban policy and jobs and health care.” The usual litany of the left.
Before the open microphone on Sunday Jackson had also said of Obama that he wanted to exercise a procedure routinely performed on some farm animals. Upon hearing that Fox intended to air the remarks, Jackson called Obama to apologize. The candidate “will continue to speak out about our responsibilities to ourselves and each other and of course accepts Reverend Jackson’s apology,” said Obama’s spokesman, Bill Burton.
Jesse Jackson is a polarizing figure who routinely alienates the voters Obama needs to attract if he is to win. In this instance, he’s done Obama a great favor. In very dramatic fashion, he’s put daylight between the modern civil rights reenactors and Obama.
The Democratic candidate has found his Sister Souljah. It’s Jesse.
