Leave, Jesse, Leave Why it's time for Jackson to quit public life.
At some point you have to wonder who still takes Jesse Jackson seriously. This is an old, old story, of course, given new piquancy by his nimble pirouettes over a recently conceived illegitimate child. But the fact that he remains in public life, that he still commands respect from many quarters, that his words actually matter in the national discourse, is, on the face of it, incredible. No comparable figure would have survived the scandals, sleaze, failure, and sheer nonsense that have trailed Jackson over the years as tenaciously as the TV cameras. If he were white, he would have about as much prominence in national life as Jimmy Swaggart.
[ . . . ]
But the issue here is not human frailty. It's not, to coin a phrase, about sex. It's about abuse of authority in the workplace (by having sex with a younger woman who owed him her job); hypocrisy (since Jackson has long preached--yes, preached--about the need for African Americans to restore the fabric of the family); gall (since he even brought his young lover with him to meet President Clinton); lying (Jackson explicitly denied the charge of fatherhood when it was first raised); abuse of taxpayers' money (the illicit use of publicly subsidized funds for a private purpose); and shamelessness.
[ . . . ]