Rev. Jesse Jackson this week made a vulgar, supposedly off-microphone, criticism of US presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama demonstrating the veteran civil rights activist’s bitterness that finally here is a young upstart with a sure chance of getting into the position that long eluded those with a single campaign platform of race.

Whispering to a guest before an interview on last Sunday's "Fox & Friends” Rev. Jackson said Senator Obama keeps "talking down to black people" and that he wanted to "cut his nuts off." This was on the back of recent speeches by the senator about the responsibilities of absent black fathers.

It appears that the comments went unnoticed until an employee transcribing the tape as part of training scheme at Fox Television discovered the transgression.
On being alerted of the existence of the tape, Rev. Jackson went on CNN on Wednesday afternoon to apologise.

"It was not a public speech or a declaration," Rev. Jackson said, and "will not be helpful."

"For any harm or hurt that this hot mic private conversation may have caused, I apologize,"

"My support for Sen. Obama's campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal."

Others suggest that Rev. Jackson’s criticism of Senator Obama can help alleviate white voters’ fears that Senator Obama may not share their values. It is also believed that any Rev. Jackson outburst will help with African American voters’ view that he is stuck in the past and bitter that Senator Obama is now blazing the trail for the White House, something Rev. Jackson failed at twice back in 1984 and 1988.

Rev. Jackson’s own 43-year-old son, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois, criticised his father, saying he was disappointed by his father's "reckless statements." And that "his divisive and demeaning comments about the presumptive Democratic nominee — and I believe the next president of the United States — contradict his inspiring and courageous career"

It is believed some of the bitterness stem from the fact that many African American voters see Senator Obama, the son of an African father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, does not have the experience that other African American slaves and their descendants long endured. The senator is therefore considered “not black enough”.