JESSE TO THE RESCUE: The Reverend Jackson arrives on the scene to express his deep dismay that the media's coverage of the Duke University controvery "put race and class in the center of the story." That's rich. Jesse Jackson has spent his career putting race and class at the center of every story he touches. Insisting it's time to rise "above the hatreds, the fears and the fantasies that still plague our society," he coyly reminds us of "the history of white men and black women," a history that "evokes too many bad memories." Speaking of remembering: What about the time Jesse's colleague in demagoguery Al Sharpton accused a white male prosecutor of complicity in the raping of a black female named Tawana Brawley? Brawley's rape charges turned out to be fabricated, and Sharpton ended up with a slander conviction. Does that incident make it onto Jackson's short list of dangerous "racial and sexual stereotypes ... the myths that entrap so many"? Probably not. Columnist Stephen Smith asks Why is Jackson pushing his way into Duke situation? Here's why: because it (the "situation") is there; it's the raw material of the race and gender hustling for which Jackson has become infamous.