So where is Jesse?

I once met Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. at a restaurant in D.C., where he was entertaining a table of genial conservative lobbyists and hatchet men. All assured me that he was a decent sort — and in those brief interactions, he appeared to be — willing to work with the other side, and considerably more moderate than his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson. One can make a reasonable case that his moderation is one of tone — he’s a committed liberal but one with little time for clenched-fist radicalism. But as Sylvester Monroe argued in The Root in 2010, Jackson’s tenure in politics has been seriously hampered anyway, his effectiveness as a legislator compromised by mounting scandals.

Because he has a lower profile than his father, few people outside his district noticed when, last month, Jackson took leave from his seat for “exhaustion”— that resilient little euphemism that typically obscures something embarrassing or sinister. Jackson’s office updated his status a few weeks ago, with an equally opaque message claiming that the representative has “grappled with certain physical and emotional ailments privately for a long period of time.” The plot thickened.

Now we are two weeks out since the last update-that-didn’t-really-update, and even Jackson’s fellow Democrats are losing patience. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin urged Jackson to update his constituents “soon” and explain “the physical condition he’s struggling with,” even though it’s not clear that if the missing congressman is suffering from something “physical.”

Read the rest here.