Jesse Jackson Apologizes To Obama

The Rev. Jesse Jackson has apologized for "regretfully crude" comments he made about Barack Obama's speeches in black churches during what he thought was a private conversation.

Jackson said he commented in response to a question from a Fox News reporter about speeches on morality that Obama has given at black churches. A Fox spokeswoman said the comments came during a conversation with a Fox & Friends guest before a live interview Sunday from Chicago.

The reverend said Wednesday that he had said Obama's speeches "can come off as speaking down to black people" and that there were other important issues to be addressed in the black community, such as unemployment, the mortgage crisis and the number of blacks in prison.

"And then I said something I thought regretfully crude but it was very private and very much a sound bite and a live mic," Jackson told CNN.

Fox News on Wednesday night aired the excerpt of Jackson's comment, including a reference to wanting to cut off Obama's genitalia.

Fox News bleeped out the offending single-syllable word in its broadcast.

In a video aired Wednesday night on the Fox program "The O'Reilly Factor," Jackson whispers to a fellow panelist , "See, Barack been, um, talking down to black people on this faith based ... I want cut his n**s off ... Barack ... he's talking down to black people."

Jackson was making the remarks to Dr. Reed V. Tuckson, executive vice president and chief of medical affairs for UnitedHealth Group.

Jackson told The Associated Press that he doesn't remember "exactly" what he said Sunday but that he was "very sorry."

"For any harm or hurt that this hot mic private conversation may have caused, I apologize," Jackson said in a written statement. "My support for Senator Obama's campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal."

Jackson said he has called Obama's campaign to apologize.

"My appeal was for the moral content of his message to not only deal with the personal and moral responsibility of black males, but to deal with the collective moral responsibility of government and the public policy...," Jackson's statement said of his comments.

"That was the context of my private conversation and it does not reflect any disparagement on my part ... or my pride in Senator Barack Obama," he said.

The Obama campaign took a measured response to the incident, contending in a statement that Obama has spoken for many years about parental responsibility as well as "jobs, justice and opportunity for all."

"He will continue to speak out about our responsibilities to ourselves and each other, and he of course accepts Rev. Jackson's apology," Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said.

On CBS News' The Early Show on Thursday, Jackson said he hopes the incident does not harm Obama's campaign.

"That's why I was quick to respond and he was quick to respond generously as well," Jackson said. "Our relationship is intact and the campaign is intact and we look forward to this magnificent redemptive moment."

Though Jackson is supporting Obama, the two are not close.

Jackson even took heat from his own son, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., for writing a column last year questioning the commitment of Obama and other Democratic presidential candidates to the needs of black voters. Jackson Jr. wrote a response in The Chicago Sun-Times with the headline, "You're wrong on Obama, Dad."

And Jackson is the third Chicago pastor to create problems for Obama on the campaign trail.

In March, a videotape of Obama's longtime former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. created a political firestorm in the primaries. On the tape, Wright accused the U.S. government of creating AIDS and is seen shouting "God damn America" during a sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

In May, Roman Catholic priest the Rev. Michael Pfleger mocked Obama's then Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Clinton during a guest sermon at Obama's former church, from which Obama has since resigned. Pfleger, who is white, pretended he was Clinton crying over "a black man stealing my show."

The comments about Obama are not the first Jackson has had to explain after believing he was off the record.

In 1984, he called New York City "Hymietown," referring to the city's large Jewish population. He later acknowledged it was the wrong to use the term, but said he did so in private to a reporter.

Michael Fauntroy, an associate professor of public policy at George Mason University and author of "Republicans And The Black Vote, said he thinks this latest incident will hurt Jackson himself more than anyone else.

"I think his reputation has been in trouble for years among some African-Americans," Fauntroy said on The Early Show. "This is one more line in the misteps that he's made that cast him in a very bad light against those African-Americans in my generation, some of whom view him very differently than those who come from his generation."