I may have been wrong about Jesse Jr.

Yesterday I wrote a diary talking about Jesse Jackson Jr. seeming to threaten black superdelegate supporters of Senator Clinton with a primary challenger if they did not switch to Obama. (link)  I based that on this news article. But during my drive time yesterday I heard an interview with Emanuel Cleaver wherein he said that relations between the members of the Congressional Black Caucus are cordial. (link)

But Cleaver mentioned some other stories of pressure from within the African American community that I found disturbing.  For example, Cleaver himself had someone run ads accusing him of being bought off by Senator Clinton.  And John Lewis, who has switched from supporting Senator Clinton to being neutral, has been the victim of what are evidently some very nasty robo-calls.

My favorite part of the Cleaver interview was this:

Cleaver relates a story to illustrate his point.

During this year's State of the Union speech, Cleaver was sitting with his friend and colleague, Congressman Jim Cooper of Tennessee.

Cooper got up to leave temporarily and asked Cleaver to hold his seat. An African diplomat saw the empty seat and asked Cleaver if he could sit in it. Cleaver responded that he was holding the seat for someone.

When Cooper — who is white — returned, Cleaver told him, "I was holding a seat for you, but a black man came along, and I didn't know him well, didn't know him at all. ... Should I give this seat to a black man because he's black? Or should I hold the seat for my friend, someone who lives down the hall from me, who I work with every day?"

Cooper responded: "I get the point.'"

I am still disappointed with Jesse Jr. over the earlier Katrina comments (video here) but I seem to have been wrong about his involvement in threats to other CBC members. I would like to hear him and Senator Obama denounce the tactics mentioned by Congressman Cleaver in the NPR interview yesterday.