Presumably Jackson wants to rip the baseball legend’s nuts off too.

DENVER — Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) told convention-goers Monday that Barack Obama is like baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson — enduring jeers without the ability to hit back.

“Barack Obama has the capacity to hit,” Jackson said a breakfast panel just before the opening of the Democratic National Convention. “But he is in the situation where he can’t hit back, which Jackie Robinson could not do. … He had to be able to run the bases, even though the crowd was jeering the first African-American on the field.”

Jackson, son of the civil rights leader, said Obama is in the same situation: “He has to keep smiling, because no one wants an angry African-American man in the White House.”

The absurdity of Jackson praising Obama after the former’s open mic boo-boo aside, are we really supposed to believe that Obama is going through anything like what Jackie Robinson went through?  Robinson was the first black man in an all-white sport during a time when segregation and open racism were still the norm.  Outside of a few jeers from the fringiest of the fringe political kooks, Obama has faced almost no racism during this election campaign.  In fact, the only mainstream racism Obama has faced were remarks he himself invented and then denounced fiercely as though they’d been offered up by his political opponents.

I’d be willing to wager that most voters care very little about what color Obama’s skin is, though racism will undoubtedly be the charge leveled should Obama start to falter during the campaign.