HELP HE DOESN'T NEED:

THE O JESSE KNOWS: JACKSON ON OBAMA'S AMERICA (AMIR TAHERI, October 14, 2008, NY Post)

[T]he Rev. Jesse] Jackson believes that, although "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.

"Obama is about change," Jackson told me in a wide-ranging conversation. "And the change that Obama promises is not limited to what we do in America itself. It is a change of the way America looks at the world and its place in it."

Jackson warns that he isn't an Obama confidant or adviser, "just a supporter." But he adds that Obama has been "a neighbor or, better still, a member of the family." Jackson's son has been a close friend of Obama for years, and Jackson's daughter went to school with Obama's wife Michelle.

"We helped him start his career," says Jackson. "And then we were always there to help him move ahead. He is the continuation of our struggle for justice not only for the black people but also for all those who have been wronged."

The good Rev underestimates the degree to which a tribal figure can be reverse Mau-Maued by the other tribes. Any effort to distance the United States from Israel is easily portrayed as Anti-Semitism on the part of a guy who's endorsed by not just Jesse Jackson by the Reverend Wright and Louis Farrakhan as well.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 14, 2008 7:51 AM