US Election 2008: Jackson Apologises for Crude Attack on Obama

Jesse Jackson yesterday issued an extraordinary apology to Barack Obama after the civil rights leader was unwittingly recorded making what he said were "crude" comments about the Democratic presidential candidate's policies. The potential damage to Obama's campaign from Jackson's comments - and the divisions they exposed between him and an older generation of African-American leaders - were underlined by the speed of the clergyman's apology.

In an aside to another guest after a Fox News Channel interview on Sunday, Jackson had said Obama had been talking down to black people and added: "I want to cut his nuts out." Initially, news organizations had hesitated to broadcast the off-air derogatory remarks. CNN's Wolf Blitzer said: "It's so crude we can't repeat it on the air."

Later, Fox television, which had the tape and withheld its broadcast until last night, reported that Jackson "threatened to cut off a certain part of Obama's anatomy". The network played a clip in which Jackson said: "Barack, he's talking down to black people."

But by then, Jackson had already issued a statement lavishly praising Obama's run for the White House. "For any harm or hurt that this hot mic private conversation may have caused, I apologize," Jackson said. "My support for Senator Obama's campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal."

The Obama campaign said it accepted the apology. But Jesse Jackson Jr, a co-chairman of the campaign, said that though he loved his father, "I thoroughly reject and repudiate his ugly rhetoric. He should keep hope alive and any personal attacks and insults to himself."

Clarence Page, a columnist at the Chicago Tribune, wrote that "Jackson, who recalled his remark as, 'The senator is cutting off his you-know-what with black people,' expressed deep regrets."

Jackson, who has known Obama's wife, Michelle, for years, made his remarks in what he thought was an off-air moment during an interview with Fox television. The conversation turned to Obama's recent speeches on morality in which he said African-American men were not living up to their responsibilities as fathers.

In Jackson's view, Obama should have assigned blame to government and public policy for the breakdown of some black families.

The suggestion of a rift between Obama and African-American voters could be very damaging to a candidate who has tried to position himself beyond the racial divide. Obama is still recovering from a controversy over his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. He is also on the defensive about his shifts in position on a host of issues, including the war in Iraq.

Bloggers have accused him of betrayal, erupting in outrage at his vote yesterday in support of a bill granting legal immunity to telephone companies engaged in wiretapping without court oversight.

Obama denies he has been moving to the center. "The people who say this apparently haven't been listening to me," he told a meeting in Atlanta.