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His comment was unexpectedly picked up by TV mic.
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Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has accepted an apology from the Rev. Jesse Jackson for making a crude comment about the candidate that was picked up by an open mic, the Associated Press reports.
"He will continue to speak out about our responsibilities to ourselves and each other, and he of course accepts Rev. Jackson's apology," Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton tells the AP.
Jackson was not aware that his microphone was on during a TV break for a Fox
News program last Sunday, when was heard criticizing the way he thinks Obama talks to the black community. He also used a slang term in reference to wanting to cut off
Obama's testicles.
When he learned Wednesday that Fox's The
O'Reilly Factor would air his comments that night, Jackson apologized for
"hurtful and wrong" remarks.
A fellow guest on the Fox news show had asked Jackson about speeches on morality that Obama has given at black churches.
At a news conference Wednesday, Jackson said he was responding that Obama's speeches can come off as speaking down to black people and that there were other important issues to be addressed, such as unemployment, the mortgage crisis and the number of blacks in prison.