The self-appointed spokesman’s “career” may be on its last legs.

On September 13, two days after America observes the one-year anniversary of the worst day in its history, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and his mob will take to the streets of Washington to protest against President George W. Bush. Such timing is bound to make an impression on the American people, but probably not the one Jackson hopes for. In any case, Jackson will not be dissuaded. As Jackson told Hardball host Chris Matthews two nights ago, "Mr. Bush has not met with civil-rights organizations. It's a closed-door policy." This does not mean the president has snubbed black people; much to the contrary, he's consistently met with African-American pastors and business leaders, the kind of men and women whose names don't turn up on journalists' Rolodexes, and who don't have a professional axe to grind. Aside from post-9/11 patriotism, this may have something to do with the fact that 54 percent of nonwhites in a recent Gallup poll approve of the job Bush is doing.

No, Jackson's ire means that he has frozen out the old-line civil-rights establishment: men like Jackson, NAACP president Kweisi Mfume and NAACP chairman Julian Bond. Bush has wisely taken the advice of black conservative activist Bob Woodson, who said prior to Bush's taking office, "It would be a mistake for Republicans, a mistake they've made in the past, to assume that they've always go through the civil-rights door to get to the black community. And standing at that door are the gatekeepers: Jesse Jackson, Kweisi Mfume, Al Sharpton. What Bush has got to do next is not be trapped by these gatekeepers."

What have these gatekeepers said about Bush and conservatives? A sampling: George W. Bush, Klansman:: "He has selected nominees from the Taliban wing of American politics, appeased the wretched appetites of the extreme right wing, and chosen Cabinet officials whose devotion to the confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection." — Julian Bond, speaking to the national NAACP convention, July 2001.

George W. Bush, Aristocrat:"We have a president who owes his election more to a dynasty than to democracy." — Bond, same place, 2002.

King Herod was a Republican: "But the bigger issue, it seems to me, is not merely the ethnic diversity of his Cabinet. I keep coming back to budget priorities and public policy. We just are coming out of the Christmas season, Juan, where Herod made the poorest folks even pay taxes. That's why Mary and Joseph had to pay tax and do the census count. But when Herod got the money, he wanted to invest in the shepherds having more land and more sheep, not invest in at-risk babies. Jesus was an at-risk baby, you know, in the manger, in the stable." — Jesse Jackson, Talk of the Nation, December 27, 2000.

George W. Bush, Lynch-Mob Leader: ""My father was killed. He was beaten, chained, and dragged three miles to his death, all because he was black. So when Gov. George W. Bush refused to support hate-crimes legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again." — Renee Mullins, daughter of racial murder victim James Byrd, in an NAACP-sponsored 2000 political ad.

George W. Bush, Gauleiter: "Nazi tactics." — Jackson, on how the GOP won the Florida recount, December 2000.

Conservatives as race-haters: "In South Africa, we call it apartheid. In Nazi Germany, we'd call it fascism. Here in the United States, we call it conservatism," said Jesse Jackson years ago." — Jackson, 1995.

Despite his public ranting, Jackson has from time to time attempted to use back channels to secure a meeting with Bush, to no avail. Jackson, whose financial empire is reportedly on the ropes, knows his livelihood depends on being perceived as a power broker, is desperate. You can't be a power broker if those in power won't give you the time of day. Bush is allowing Jackson's rabblerousing career to die on the vine. It's a mercy killing.

Jackson, friend of Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat, has done himself no favors in the aftermath of September 11 by positioning himself increasingly on the loony-left, anti-patriotic fringe. This week, he criticized the Democratic-party leadership for not doing enough to back Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the wack-job black Democrat from Georgia who faces a tough primary battle. McKinney, on whose behalf anti-Semitic tyro Louis Farrakhan will be campaigning over the weekend, has taken campaign contributions from Arab extremists, and has accused the Bush administration of orchestrating the 9/11 massacres to serve its own political interests.

From the Right, it will be satisfying to see Jackson in Washington railing against the popular wartime president in Washington on the same week that the nation he leads marks the one-year anniversary of September 11 in what will surely be a coast-to-coast outpouring of patriotic solidarity. How many of the corporations who have been buying a racial seal of approval by contributing to Jackson will be keen to be associated with him after that? Jesse's cracking up, and the president is helping him along by standing there and doing absolutely nothing. Who knew it would be so easy?

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002