On a visit to Tallahassee Tuesday, Jesse Jackson “used the phrase ‘Selma of our time’–a reference to civil rights marches in Alabama that helped prompt change in the 1960s,” the Miami Herald reports. …

Compiling a complete list of New Selmas would be a worthy project for some blogger. But Jackson’s Selma fixation is especially ironic in light of a March 1988 quote we found. At that time Jackson was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Don Wycliff, a member of the New York Times editorial board, penned an enthusiastic commentary titled “The New Jesse Jackson”: …

“They always came after he recounted a visit to Selma, Ala., where, Mr. Jackson said, the Mayor acknowledged he was “on the wrong side of history” on March 6, 1965 [sic; actually March 7]. That was Bloody Sunday, when the Alabama State Police ran riot over civil rights marchers in the climactic episode of the voting rights campaign. But that battle is over now, Mr. Jackson continued, and it is time to “forgive . . . redeem . . . move on.””

So 23 years after the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, it was time to move on–but now that another 25 years have passed–and, by the way, a black man has made it to the White House–everything’s coming up Selma.