Jesse Jr.’s Dilemma

The conversation was informal and the congressman, black sweater over blue jeans, spoke with candor. He was grateful to have benefited from his father’s tutelage and fame, he volunteered. Yet even as he had moved into his 40s and become his own man, some people held his name against him and always would. He had won re-election by an 8-1 ratio and, in one of the nation’s most Democratic districts, he probably could keep the job as long as he wanted. But capturing a statewide office in Illinois, he acknowledged, would be difficult for Rev. Jesse Jackson’s son.

That conversation took place a few years ago. Today the dilemma of being U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has grown still more complex. The trial of Rod Blagojevich has sucked Jackson into its tornadic vortex. Last week a federal prosecutor said a witness could put Jackson at a Loop restaurant meeting in October 2008. There one of Jackson’s backers allegedly offered to raise $1 million for Blagojevich if the then-governor would appoint Jackson to the U.S. Senate seat that Barack Obama would vacate if he was elected president.

That breathtaking disclosure — some elements of which the judge ultimately didn’t let jurors hear — tempts all manner of scenarios based more on human imagination than on trial testimony.

Read more: (Editorial, “Jesse Jr.’s Dilemma,” Chicago Tribune, 07/13/10)