The big political story of the day is that Jesse Jackson was in range of a live mic while complaining about Barack Obama to a friend. Stories differ, but the phrase "I want to cut his nuts off" definitely entered the audio feed. I basically agree with Tim Fernholz on this, Jackson is getting a bad rap. The problem was the live mic, not his comment. His comment was a private utterance, graphically constructed, but not atypical for conversations between friends. Transposed into the public realm, however, it looks a lot worse, even a bit shocking. Private language doesn't work in public contexts. They're two different tongues. Jackson could have said, "I'm extremely frustrated with Obama's recent comments," and it would have meant the same thing to his buddy, but his son wouldn't have denounced him. Public discourse has a literalism, and an enforced civility, that renders it a rather prim arena when compared to how people talk behind closed doors. That's probably as it should be. But it's something we should keep in mind when a someone accidentally turns off the public filter while standing a little too close to a live mic.
