Jesse Jackson is an attention freak and narcissist. He is part of the past that needs to slip quietly in to the good night so that this country can welcome a new day.

It's the syphillis.

Doesn't he have enough experience as a politician to avoid playing stupid? I totally understand that a guy like Rev. Wright would make "outrageous" comments -- he's not a politician, his audience is a community that knows him and knows all the admirable things he has done in his career. But Jesse Jackson doesn't have that kind of excuses. Can't he just leave Obama out of it? Really makes you wonder what side he's on.

What a hater!

Jesse Jackson is an egotist, an antisemite, and corrupt. But Jackson isn't stupid, and he knows exactly what he's doing.

The wonderful thing about an African-American candidate is that he doesn't have to show deference to, or pay off, professional African-Americans (as distinct from African-American professionals) like Jackson and Sharpton. Jackson is no doubt miffed that Obama doesn't want and won't pay for his help, so he's trying to hurt Obama to see if Obama will pay him to stop.

The Jewish and Israeli right-wing media has been pushing the "Obama has Muslim/terrorist connections" line. (The liberal Jewish media, of course, is pro-Obama.) I am a committed Zionist and Obama supporter, and I've found myself in an unpleasant fight with a Zionist friend who has swallowed that line.

I have been doing my best to reassure her that (a) the suspicion is based mostly on innuendo; (b) that Obama is willing to talk and listen to someone doesn't necessarily mean he agrees; (c) plenty of Jews have endorsed and advise Obama, and they aren't all anti-Israel left-wingers (I live in Obama's neighborhood and know some of them); and most importantly, (d) neither America nor Israel needs an American president who has a dubious political history, is reckless, unstable and 72 years old, and whose vice-president is an ignorant, inexperienced, Christian fundamentalist twit.

Jesse Jackson knows perfectly well that a statement like that is unlikely to gain Obama votes from anti-Zionists, but will go straight to the gut of my friend and Jews like her. We have to point out what should be obvious, that people like Jackson and Farrakhan, different though they may be, have an obvious interest in seeing Obama lose. If Obama wins, it won't mean racism is dead, but it will show that America can deal with it without their "help."

Jackson is a man whose time has gone. His endorsment of Obama as an "African-American leader" is next to worthless, but his supporting Obama as a known antisemite has substantial negative value among Jewish voters, and he knows it. Politicians in their decline get ugly, don't they?