Look, I'm as disappointed as anyone in Barack Obama since he became the Democratic candidate for president.

His lurch to the right -- on leaving Iraq, government eavesdropping on U.S. citizens and expanding "faith-based" federal handouts to religious groups -- has made a mockery out of his slogan, "Change You Can Believe In."

But when Jesse Jackson took a rhetorical dive into the gutter in going after Obama, more was at work than policy disagreement.

Jackson accused Obama of "talking down to black people" before crudely going below the belt and saying he wanted to rip off a part of Obama's anatomy.

African-Americans -- not least among us Jesse Jackson -- have become distressed over noose sightings in, say, Jena, La. We groused when a golf commentator suggested, in jest, that Tiger Woods should be lynched.

Jackson, better than anyone, should realize how charged his words were. After all, castration was often part of the black male lynching ritual.

As a minister, "That's not what you're teaching" said Terone Green, former president of the Richmond Crusade for Voters.

"If that had been somebody white saying that, we'd be up in arms," Green said. "We should not allow blacks to have passes. . . . Everyone should be held to the same standard, whether they're black or white.

"He shouldn't just apologize to Obama, but all the kids who can read and understand what he said. That's not the appropriate language."

Jackson's vulgar comment detracted from the legitimacy of his argument with Obama and reflected an intensely personal distaste for the history-making candidate who has taken pains to keep Jackson at arm's length.

"Jesse Jackson has a very healthy ego, and no doubt he is a bit envious of Obama," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

From Jackson's perspective, there is no Obama without Jackson's galvanizing runs for the Democratic nomination in 1984 and 1988.

Obama's tack has to remind Jackson of how another politician on the highway to history -- L. Douglas Wilder -- made Jackson unwelcome in Virginia during Wilder's gubernatorial campaign.

"Wilder and Obama are politicians who happen to be black, and therefore can win in a white-majority electorate," Sabato said. "Jackson and Al Sharpton were and are exactly the opposite.

"Like many on the left, Jackson seems irritated that Obama, unlike so many other Democratic presidential candidates, has decided he'd like to actually win the election rather than make a statement."

Sabato has a point. Pragmatism has its place. But for some folks, Obama's campaign wasn't supposed to be about expediency.

Yes, Obama can't win -- "McLaughlin Group" host John McLaughlin said Obama "fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside." But you become a target when you hold yourself up as a change agent.

Obama's soaring rhetoric should amount to more than a Bush sequel with a black lead. Some of us haven't stopped believing in the daring notion of returning power to the people.

Jackson's language was crude, his motivation suspect. But frustration with Obama is real. How does it serve him to make history if he emasculates a movement?
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or mwilliams@timesdispatch.com.