By Brian Carnell

Wednesday, January 31, 2001

After his withdrawal from public life and quick re-entry, you'd think Jesse Jackson would want to maintain a lower profile and not attract any further controversy. You would be wrong.

Although there's no announcement of it yet on the Operation Rainbow/PUSH web site yet, the New York Post reported that Jackson appeared in a Chicago church with former Rep. Mel Reynolds and has tapped Reynolds to work with Rainbow/PUSH on prison reforms of all things. The Post reports that a Jackson aide confirmed the hiring of Reynolds saying, "Somebody's got to give Mel a place to start."

Reynolds was in the news recently since his name showed up on the list of people pardoned by Bill Clinton in the last days of his presidency. Among other things, Reynolds was convicted on 15 counts of fraud related to his handling of campaign contributions. But what sent Reynolds to jail for two and a half years and forced him to resign from the House of Representatives was his sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl who worked on his campaign.

The 16-year-old eventually said Reynolds raped her only to recant her claims, but Reynolds was burned badly in court by audio tapes made by police in which Reynolds is clearly excited about the prospect of having sex with a 15-year-old friend of his young lover, describing it as equivalent to winning the lottery.

That Jesse Jackson would want to publicly associate himself with Reynolds given the events of the last few weeks is unbelievable. Even Jackson's worst enemies on the Right couldn't write a script to top that decision.

Source:

What Nerve! This Perv To Serve As Jesse Aide Rod Dreher, The New York Post, Tuesday, January 30, 2001.

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