Good Thing He's Not The Senate Majority Leader

President Vicente Fox of Mexico has managed to find himself on the wrong side of Jesse Jackson after some disparaging remarks about African-Americans:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Saturday criticized Mexican President Vicente Fox's comment that Mexican immigrants to the United States take jobs "that not even blacks want to do."

Jackson called the remark "a spurious comparison" with "ominous racial overtones."

No kidding. No wonder there's so much tension between Hispanics and Blacks in high schools these days. There have been a number of near riots in L.A. schools in the last few weeks.

Of course Fox and his staff are now furiously backpeddling:

The Mexican president's office issued a statement late Saturday disputing the negative interpretation of his comments, saying Fox has "enormous respect to minorities whatever their racial, ethnic, or religious origin may be."

A Mexican official defended Fox later in the day, saying his description was not meant as an insult.

"The president didn't make a declaration in the racist sense; of course there are those who interpret it in that way," Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Derbez told a reporter in the Mexican state of Jalisco.

In America today, if you say you want your coffee black, Jesse Jackson will consider that a racist remark, so you know that a remark like jobs "that not even blacks want to do" is going to set off a firestorm.

However, the good Reverend Jackson is feeling forgiving toward the Mexican leader, unlike the way he's react had a Republican made that comment:

Jackson said he has worked "for the citizenship rights of immigrants and Mexican Americans" and wants steps taken to avoid making the United States "hostile toward immigration policy."

He said Fox's comment about "blacks" seemed to be about a stereotype. "Most poor Americans are not black, they're white," he added.

But Jackson stopped short of saying Fox should apologize.

"I don't know about that," he said, adding that the comment was "unwitting, unnecessary, and inappropriate."

It's a good thing Fox is not the Senate Majority Leader or he'd have to embark on a national apology tour followed by his resignation (see Trent Lott).