Obama ignores Jackson family’s wishes at memorial

ANALYSIS:

The death of the Rev. Jesse Jackson produced the unexpected: a public split between two of Chicago’s most prominent Democratic figures.

The day after Mr. Jackson died on Feb. 17, his son, Jesse Jr., appeared with other family members outside the civil rights icon’s Chicago home.

Mr. Jackson Jr., a former congressman now running to reclaim Illinois’ 2nd District House seat, eulogized his 84-year-old father. And he set the rules for a series of upcoming memorials, saying the services should be nonpartisan and politics-free.

“Do not bring your politics out of respect to Rev. Jesse Jackson and the life that he lived, to these homegoing services,” the son said. “These homegoing services are welcome to all: Democrat, Republican, liberal and conservative, right wing, left wing, because his life is broad enough to cover the full spectrum of what it means to be an American.”

(“Homegoing” is a Christian African-American service to return the departed to God.)

Former President Barack Obama, who spoke March 6 as former Presidents Bill Clinton and Joe Biden sat in the front row, either ignored or didn’t receive the Jackson Jr. admonition. Mr. Obama delivered a divisive condemnation of President Trump, casting America as under siege by MAGA on all fronts.

The next day, Mr. Jackson Jr. rebuked him.

“Yesterday, I listened for several hours to three United States presidents who do not know Jesse Jackson,” he said during a second memorial service, this one at Rainbow Push Coalition headquarters in Chicago.

“He maintained a tense relationship with the political order, not because the presidents were white or black, but the demands of our message, the demands of speaking for the least of these — those who are disinherited, the damned, the dispossessed, the disrespected — demanded not Democratic or Republican solutions, but demanded a consistent, prophetic voice that at no point in time ever sold us out as people,” he said, according to the New York Post.

Mr. Jackson Jr. was really talking about just one former president — Mr. Obama. The other two men mostly kept to the script.

At the House of Hope convention center the day before, Mr. Obama praised the Rev. Jackson’s life. But as he wrapped up, the former president diverted down another path. He unleashed a harsh attack on Mr. Trump, whom he described not by name but as “those in high office.” The Trump America, he said, is sponsoring lawlessness, bullying, bigotry, greed and corruption.

Mr. Obama said, “We are living in a time when it can be hard to hope. Each day we wake up to see new assault on our democratic institutions. Another setback to the idea of the rule of law. An offense to common decency. Every day, you wake up to it, to things you just didn’t think were possible. Each day, we’re told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other. And that some Americans count more than others. And that some don’t even count at all. Everywhere we see greed and bigotry being celebrated, and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength.”

And, he said, “We see science and expertise denigrated while ignorance and dishonesty and cruelty and corruption are reaping untold rewards every single day. We see that. And it’s hard to hope in those moments. So it may be tempting to get discouraged. To give in to cynicism. It may be tempting for some to compromise with power and grab what you can, or even for good people maybe just put your head down and wait for the storm to pass.” (Mr. Trump’s exit in 2029, I assume.)

Conservatives called out Mr. Obama’s strident remarks.

“If you want to know why Donald Trump was elected, watch Barack Obama’s attack speech yesterday at Jesse Jackson’s funeral,” Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush’s press secretary, said on X. “As he did throughout his presidency, he created a straw man to describe Republicans as bigots who force the American people to ‘turn on each other.’ … Obama is one of the most divisive figures in US history, except he is celebrated by the MSM [mainstream media] because they are partisans. They take sides and loved and protected Obama.”

You can understand why conservatives are mad. Anyone who has watched left-wing violence, with assassinations, unfold in recent years, and Democrats at times seeming to encourage it, would ask who is really pitting Americans against each other?

Mr. Biden left Mr. Trump the legacy of an open southern border through which the brutal Mexican drug cartels pushed millions of people we knew nothing about. Thousands, I would estimate, are criminals, given the number of murders, vehicle homicides, rapes, rapes of children, thefts and scams reported daily. You can read about them in local news reports, not in the mass liberal news media.

Why would a president do that to Americans and why shouldn’t Mr. Trump set a course on arresting and deporting them?

Tulsi Gabbard, Mr. Trump’s director of National Intelligence, laid out a new chapter in the Democrats’ 2016-18 Russia Hoax. She told how Mr. Obama and his aides, after Mr. Trump’s election victory, concocted a plan to release a report that said Russian President Vladimir Putin favored the new president’s election. Ms. Gabbard disclosed for the first time that the Obama Intelligence Community Assessment relied on the bogus Hillary Clinton campaign dossier to make the Putin allegation.

“These documents detail a treasonous conspiracy by officials at the highest levels of the Obama White House to subvert the will of the American people and try to usurp the president from fulfilling his mandate,” Ms. Gabbard said in July.

Has any incoming U.S. president ever been more sabotaged before Inauguration Day by the outgoing president and his co-conspirators?

One subplot in the Jesse Jackson memorial service. The family invited Mr. Biden to attend. He delivered a speech mostly about himself, but did attack Mr. Trump briefly.

Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned as a congressman in 2012 and served time in prison for felony corruption convictions. As Mr. Biden was leaving office, the senior Jackson petitioned the president for his son’s pardon. Mr. Biden pardoned thousands and delivered preemptive pardons to his family, including son Hunter and brother James. But he did not issue a pardon for Democrat Jesse Jackson Jr.

“Of course, I am disappointed. Democrats had an opportunity to end felonization for thousands, if not millions, of American citizens who have completed the time they were sentenced to serve. The fight for the American felon, of which I am one, must continue,” Mr. Jackson Jr. said in a statement on Mr. Trump’s Inauguration Day of 2025.