In a story on the front page of the Washington Post about the controversies surrounding reclusive Illinois Democratic congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., readers have to wade through 23 paragraphs before they hit the story’s most interesting nugget of information:
Now, to be fair to Jackson, the Post’s article does say that Coconate and Jackson had a falling out a few years ago, so take the story with a grain of salt. According to Coconate and Avila, Jackson also “called older African American lawmakers ‘plantation Negroes’ and whites were ‘lemonheads.’”
The Post quotes Frank Watkins, a spokesman for Jackson’s congressional office, as saying, “I’ve never heard him [Jackson] say anything remotely like that. It sounds completely foreign to me.”
