Jackson's bait shop back in business

The Duke lacrosse story hasn't really interested me so far. It seemed illogical to believe that either of the following two scenarios (or both) could not have easily occurred:

1) that a group of college-aged boys, especially those involved in sports, would be incapable of hiring a few strippers then wanting a bit more for their money, or,

2) that hired strippers of questionable character were incapable of making up a rape story against rich white boys to get some easy money.

That's not to say the story wasn't news and blogworthy, it was. I just decided to watch it from the sidelines. But after the latest twist, I can no longer sanctimoneously pretend to remain above the fray:

DURHAM, North Carolina (AP) -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Saturday his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition would pay the college tuition of a black woman who alleges white members of the Duke University lacrosse team raped her.

Amazing. After his own scandals and the failure to garner enough outrage to flip the last two elections it seemed that Jackson had been rendered insignificant. But this latest attempt at pandering is one for the hall of fame. After all,

Jackson he has yet to speak with the woman, but said his group pledged to pay for her tuition even if her story proves false.

Gee, one would think before cutting that tuition check he'd at least want to look her in the eye, since if the story turns out Tawana Brawley-ish then Rainbow/PUSH will in effect be rewarding bad behavior.

But aside from such an obvious perplexity, if I'm reading this correctly the story suggests Jesse's organization might be suffering from the same cutbacks faced by the rest of America--consolidation and downsizing.

For example, this was a telephone interview. In the past Jesse would always show up at the scene and well, make a scene. Does this signal that he's now content with phoning in his scenes? Surely he still has a travel budget.

Whatever, I suppose this new downsized Jesse has already considered his next move should the worst case occur. He'll probably take a cue from Hillary on the illegal alien story and use the Good Samaritan defense, scorning detractors that persecuting his good deed amounts to persecuting Christ, while simultaneously inferring they probably wear Hitler underoos to bed. Knowing the MSM, such a strategy might work.

The pertinent question is whether this move represents a final hoorah for Rainbow/PUSH or perhaps a new awakening. People like me aren't the target of his message so it's hard to tell. But there seems to be a leadership struggle going on within the black community, and it will be interesting to see if Jackson's victim-pandering strategy can win the day over tough-love messages like this one.


edit for grammar