That's what any saggy old guy wants to do to a better-looking younger guy who proposes to put the older guy out of business. It's just a natural sentiment-- that's just what the older guy feels like the younger guy is doing to him. It's kind of a guy thing.
It's the putting-out-of-business thing that really hurts. As Guido the Killer Pimp said, you don't cut into a man's profit margin in an unstable economy. Jesse Jackson has made a business out of telling black people, "No you can't." Was there ever a more embarrassing whine than "I may be black, but I am somebody?" The slogan was just next to "I may have polio, but I can walk." Jesse Jackson sold that line, that weltanschauung, for decades. So did Al Sharpton. So did Rev. Wright. "You owe us," they said. "Racism is part of this country's DNA, so you will always owe us." And as Barack Obama pointed out, that sentiment fathered the modern conservative backlash, from the awful career of Jesse Helms to the unlikely ascension of Ronald Reagan.
It is possible (though nobody has ever proved it) that Hannnity, Limbaugh, and Roger Ailes have annual meetings with Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and a few Rev. Wrights. Keep up the good work, they tell each other. This thing is nothing but a license to steal.
And here comes this--this kid, this Obama kid, saying that's all bullshit.
Oh, he's not the first. Clarence Thomas says it, but the guy is a second-rater, a mental and moral also-ran who constantly takes the one posture a public man must never take, which (as George Bernard Shaw said) is that of a man with a grievance. Bill Cosby says it, but who in hell is Bill Cosby? An entertainer, not to mention old, and with a lamentable tendency, like Thomas, to get involved in sexual harassment claims. But this guy--
This guy, Obama, is different. He enjoys his accomplishments. His law school exams, after all, were anonymously graded. He won his elections fair and square. He's got a great-looking wife and two nice little kids and by all accounts keeps his hands where they belong. Above all, he is not angry. Every big grin rebukes the great Jackson-Hannity you-owe-us-fuck-you anger-resentment franchise. He's a monkey wrench in their gears.
Jackson wishes, understandably, to nut the guy. The remark is broadcast. Jackson apologizes. Well and good. And indeed, no damage has been done. It's only a bit of rag, that remark, making visible the changed direction of the wind, making too plain that the ship is sailing without old Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and (though he is now safely ensconced in hell) Jesse Helms.
They rage, of course. As I said, it's a guy thing.