There is a saying in the black community that blacks cannot improve as a people because like crabs in a barrel whenever one tries to climb out of the barrel the other ones will pull him back down. The reaction of some of the so-called black leaders to the success of Senator Barack Obama seems to bear out this analogy. It seems like the closer he gets to making history the more the "haters" try to sabotage him. The sad part about this whole episode is that the same leaders who are critical of the Senator today, should he get elected will be at the White House the day after the inauguration looking for handouts.

the fall is not yet here, the leaves have yet to have a chance to begin to change color...

the political season is so early yet, too early it seems, but nonetheless, we once again get to enjoy the quasi=regular national race baiting with jesse jackson

jesse has made many crude comments in the course of his life, he has made mistakes, as have we all, he has done some good things with his life

I am constantly amazed by the evident existence of an undercover GOP network of sleeper cell moles in the left liberal community.

Latest case on point:  Rev. Jesse Jackson.

"Jackson said at a news conference that he had replied that Obama's speeches can come off as speaking down to black people and that there were other important issues to be addressed in the community, such as unemployment, the mortgage crisis and the number of blacks in prison."
http://news.aol.com/elections/story/_a/j ackson-sorry-for-crude-obama-remarks/200 80709195109990001?icid=200100397x1205445 419x1200262943

Faux News is running a captured/live comment by Jesse Jackson, headlining it as "Breaking News," where Jackson makes a statement, on-screen, whispering under his breath to another (unidentified) person prior to going on-camera: "Obama's talking down to black people. I want to cut his nuts off."

Apparently, shortly thereafter, Jesse Jackson issued a statement apologizing for his "crude and hurtful comments."

I'm sure this will be all over the news if it hasn't made it to the top of DKos yet.

UPDATE:

Looks like it's running at the top of MSNBC now.

Hillary Clinton said today, "I'm staying in this race until there's a nominee . . . ," which means that she intends to stay in the race until the Democratic Party officially selects its presidential candidate at its August convention, in Denver.    So, does Clinton meet the dictionary definition of "spoiler" yet?

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines the word "spoiler" as:

"one (as a political candidate) having little or no chance of winning but capable of depriving a rival of success"  Merriam Webster

The National Review called Al Sharpton a "professional spoiler" in 1992.   In 1996, calling the Democratic Party "the party of spoilers," Time Magazine said of Jesse Jackson and Ross Perot, "each of them could play havoc with the 1996 presidential race  . . .  each is a failed presidential candidate with no realistic chance to win the White House . . ."

Today, that's what virtually everyone is saying about Hillary Clinton.  The Hutch Report blog has said,

While it is a logical assumption that Hillary Clinton will drop out of the 2008 Democratic race if she does not win in Pennsylvania, that actual announcement will be hard for her to make. Hopefully, friends of Hillary Clinton have already been priming her for a potential defeat in Pennsylvania and telling her what the right thing to do will be if she is not successful there. If Hillary Clinton continues her campaign after a Pennsylvania defeat, then she and yes her husband too will become damaged goods in a political party that stood behind Bill Clinton through thick and thin when it came to his mistakes in moral judgment.

It is clear to most objective observers that both Bill and Hillary Clinton are very narcissistic and getting either one of them to admit they have lost a campaign is something that most people would not even attempt. That said, there is a time for the 'fat lady to sing' and if Hillary loses in Pennsylvania tomorrow night that lady's voice should ring loud and clear even in her own ears.  Hutch Report

Everyone, including now Hillary Clinton's advisers and ex-supporters, now agrees that it is virtually impossible for Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

Clinton advisers sketched out a scenario that they said could still deliver the nomination, though they acknowledged privately that the odds are long.

( . . . )

One Clinton adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be frank, said: "If the supers weren't buying it before, it's hard to see how they'll buy it now.  Washington Post

She's just too far behind numerically.

Tuesday's results drastically reshaped the dynamic of the campaign, positioning Obama as the all-but-certain nominee and casting Clinton as a dogged but deluded also-ran. At least one prominent Democrat, Clinton supporter and former South Dakota Sen. George McGovern, called on Clinton to quit the race.  Yahoo News

Although Clinton was once known for running a notoriously tight ship that eschewed leaks, her own supporters are telling the media that she just cannot win, and needs to accept it and bow out gracefully.

Another Clinton supporter said privately that the candidate has but one option: "Withdraw gracefully and help unify the party to beat McCain."  Washington Post

And yet we're still, still reading headlines in the Washington Post such as, "Clinton Spurns Calls to Quit Race."

More . . .

There has clearly been a lot of talk about race during this campaign - and, unfortunately a lot of talk about race-baiting. The common meme is that the Clinton campaign has started going negative and is using race to do so. But is that the case? Have the Clintons been playing the race card?

There have been many charges against Sen. Clinton, her husband, and members of her campaign. Several members of Clinton's campaign staff have resigned due to (purportedly) race-based controversies and the issue has become so central to the Democratic primary campaign that, when a charge of "racism" was leveled at the Obama campaign (through his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright), Sen. Obama canceled his TV news appearances to prep for a hasty address on "race and unity".

I'll tackle these two questions together, following a "scorecard" method we can assess at the end. I've come up with a baker's dozen of "race-baiting" stories and will try to determine what was actually said, how the story was spun, and who did the spinning. I'm allotting each story two or four points (which can be divvied up), depending on the impact of the story. As I type this, I'm not sure what the scorecard may look like at the end - and I may disprove my own assumptions. :unsure: Then again, I've been monitoring the coverage of the "race-baiting" fairly closely all along, so I'm doubting that I'll surprise myself much...

Barack Obama's hypocrisy knows no limits.

As you may remember, Obama yesterday chastised his own grandmother for being afraid of blacks:

   

I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

Guess what. The Daily Howler has unearthed a 1993 article in the New York Times quoting Jesse Jackson expressing comments identical to those of Obama's grandmother. Jackson, ladies and gentlemen, was afraid of blacks and relieved when a white person walked by:

Bob Herbert, 12-12-1993:

   

Jesse Jackson is traveling the country with a tough anti-crime message that he is delivering to inner-city youngsters. In Chicago he said, "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery -- then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.

Yet Obama chose to blame his own defenseless grandmother rather than taking the bold step of taking Jackson to task, even though the latter is an influential figure in the nation, unlike Barry's granny.

Barack Obama's hypocrisy has been on display for a while now.

This is just one more example.
Will he condemn Jackson?

I got an unpleasant surprise over at dKos today when I posted this as a "developing story."  They basically called both me and Kendrick Meek a liar.  According to Tove in the comments here, Kendrick Meek was on MSNBC today and said there was another part to the question asking Bill to talk about historical black candidates.  I called Meek's FL office once and his DC office twice and got a confirmation that he was with Bill in SC, and that he did hear something extra that the staffer could not personally confirm, and that he was on with Chris Jansing on MSNBC at 2pm eastern.  I have not yet found footage of that.  I was hoping that maybe someone else might have seen it and tivoed it for some reason.  One commenter in my dKos diary did confirm that Meek said what I had heard, then proceeded to dump all over Meek's credibility.