Rev. Jesse Jackson Apologizes for 'Regretfully Crude' Comments About Obama

Barack Obama Jesse Jackson Crude Remark

CHICAGO (AP) - The Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized Wednesday for “regretfully crude” comments that the civil rights leader 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.

Jackson 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 ---- 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.”

Messages seeking comment were left Wednesday for Obama's campaign.

“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.

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

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton noted that the Illinois senator grew up without his father and has spoken and written at length about the issues of parental responsibility and fathers participating in their children's lives, and of society's obligation to provide “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 Reverend Jackson's apology,” Burton said.

Jackson's comments sparked something of a family feud. His son, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., said he was disappointed by his father's “reckless statements.”

“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,” the younger Jackson said.

Last year, when the Rev. Jackson wrote a column 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.