Jesse Jackson apologises for crude Obama castration remarks

New York, July 10 : The Reverend Jesse Jackson has apologised for "regretfully crude" comments he made about Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Jackson told CNN on Wednesday that comments came during what he thought was a private conversation with a Fox news reporter.

Jackson set off an uproar for saying he wanted to cut off Obama's testicles for talking down to Black Americans, the Daily News reported.

Jackson hurried to apologize to the Democratic presidential candidate, apparently after learning that Fox News had recorded the remark was going to air it on Wednesday.

"I said something I felt regret for -- it was crude," Jackson told CNN.

Jackson said he was "very distressed" that his remarks have became public because he said he is deeply supportive of Obama's White House bid.

It happened, he said, when a fellow guest on a Fox News show last Sunday asked Jackson about Obama's speeches at Black churches.

"I said it can come off as speaking down to black people," said Jackson, recounting his remarks. "The moral message must be a much broader message. What we need really is racial justice and urban policy and jobs and healthcare."

While Obama accepted the apology through a spokesman, his own son, Republican Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), publicly condemned him.

"I'm deeply outraged and disappointed in Rev. Jackson's reckless statements," the younger Jackson said. "I thoroughly reject and repudiate his ugly rhetoric."

Rev. Jackson has a history of making critical statements about Obama. In November, he wrote an op-ed column in the Chicago Sun-Times that lambasted all of the presidential candidates, including Obama, because they "have virtually ignored the plight of African Americans in this country."

Last September, the elder Jackson accused Obama of "acting like he's white" for failing to take an aggressive role in denouncing the treatment of six black teens who were saddled with severe criminal charges for allegedly beating a white student in Jena, La.

ANI