He Is Somebody

FOR a book that provides so little new information about its subject, this manages to be a shocking piece of work. Kenneth R. Timmerman has compiled an exhaustive, just-the-facts account that reads more like a prosecutor’s brief than a biography; he reports what seems like every sleazy thing that has ever been reported or otherwise documented about Jesse Jackson’s wildly successful 40-year career as a public nuisance. You come away from Shakedown astonished at how much we’ve always known about Jackson’s flagrant dirtbaggery—and at how little difference this knowledge has made to the Establishment.

Jackson’s is an all-American success store, of the robber-baron type. Timmerman demonstrates that Jackson has always been a self-promoting egotist with boundless chutzpah, little regard for the rules, and an uncanny ability to manipulate the market—in his case, the market in white guilt—for immense personal gain. The only thing that’s changed for him in four decades are the stakes. The difference between Jackson and the robber barons is that the latter left behind museums, libraries, and other facilities to enhance the commonweal. Jackson’s legacy to anyone outside his family and inner circle of friends and supporters is nil.

RD

About the Author

Rod Dreher

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Martin Luther King Jr

Chicago

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Civil Rights

FOR a book that provides so little new information about its subject, this manages to be a shocking piece of work. Kenneth R. Timmerman has compiled an exhaustive, just-the-facts account that reads more like a prosecutor’s brief than a biography; he reports what seems like every sleazy thing that has ever been reported or otherwise documented about Jesse Jackson’s wildly successful 40-year career as a public nuisance. You come away from Shakedown astonished at how much we’ve always known about Jackson’s flagrant dirtbaggery—and at how little difference this knowledge has made to the Establishment.

Jackson’s is an all-American success store, of the robber-baron type. Timmerman demonstrates that Jackson has always been a self-promoting egotist with boundless chutzpah, little regard for the rules, and an uncanny ability to manipulate the market—in his case, the market in white guilt—for immense personal gain. The only thing that’s changed for him in four decades are the stakes. The difference between Jackson and the robber barons is that the latter left behind museums, libraries, and other facilities to enhance the commonweal. Jackson’s legacy to anyone outside his family and inner circle of friends and supporters is nil.