"generational divide"? What a load of hogwash! All it takes is one look at Africa or the inner city and you
may understand how black men's power struggles become violent whenever money and power are involved. It's just pathetic that the politically correct press cannot state the truth but instead pretends
that b-tch-ness is something only women are capable of.
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But for the Reverend Jackson, the generational differences with Obama may be as much personal as political—the lament of an elder who believes that he has not been given his due. Friends of Jackson Senior, who asked not to be named talking about private matters, say that the relationship between Jackson and Obama soured as Obama gained stature. Jackson believed Hillary Clinton would win the Democratic nomination. When Obama surged, Jackson began to criticize Obama in public—saying, for example, that John Edwards was a better champion of the poor. "It all comes down to Jesse feeling like Obama didn't really reach out to him for advice during this period," says one of the reverend's friends. "He had run for president and done well. He thought that that should have meant something."
Jackson himself has hinted at these feelings. In an interview with NEWSWEEK last year, he said he rarely spoke to Obama, even though the senator's campaign office wasn't far from his house. "I see the motorcade, so I know when he is in town," Jackson said. In an interview last week, he complained that "we live in an ahistorical country where people don't want to remember or think about what's come before." One of the things people don't remember, Jackson said: his own presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988, which he believes helped break ground for Obama. "We made great strides in '88," he said. "We beat [Al] Gore and [Dick] Gephardt in areas in Iowa and brought out voters that never felt they had a reason to vote before. These things happened and it is a part of the Obama win as well."
If Jackson can seem wistful about his diminished prominence, he wants it known that he isn't trying to cause trouble for his party or weaken the nominee. "It is ridiculous to think I have any resentment or jealousy toward Obama or any other younger person coming up," he said. "I made a serious mistake … But why would I be jealous? I'm part of the winning team."
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