Jeff Jacoby wonders why the field of Democratic presidential candidates and the media refuse to even mention the despicable race-baiting, riot-inciting, anti-Semitic track record of Al Sharpton. Instead he's treated as just another respectable, viable candidate to be President of The United States. And what's worse, he functions as the de facto resident civil rights watchdog of the campaign statements by the other Democrats. And they let him get away with it. An excerpt from Jacoby:
It is as if David Duke were running for president and the leading figures in politics and the press decided not to make an issue of the fact that he had been an Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Is it even remotely conceivable that Duke would be regarded as just another candidate, let alone a candidate qualified to criticize the racial failings of others? Yet there was Sharpton at the CNN debate in Boston last week, lecturing Dean on "brotherhood" and quoting Martin Luther King."You're not a bigot," he said, "but you appear to be too arrogant to say `I'm wrong.' " This from the slanderer who to this day refuses to apologize for his role in the contemptible Tawana Brawley hoax, and for his poisonous libel of an innocent man.
They are paralyzed by the possibe political backlash of challenging Sharpton on his history of hateful statements and actions, simply because he happens to be a black man. So he is given a pass. It would be nice if his fellow Democrats could signal in some way that they are at least slightly uncomfortable with Sharpton's candidacy for our country's highest office. Their failure to do so is, in Jacoby's words, "a moral and political disgrace". Read it all.
Posted by dan at November 10, 2003 07:06 PMIt's interesting that you're labeling Sharpton as a race-baiting bigot, considering that if you actually listened to his overall message, he is actually a racial integrationist. I am not a big fan of Sharpton myself, I personally think he is a self-appointed (or media-appointed) black "leader" and is a bit attention-greedy. But I do notice that oftentimes (some) white ppl seem to have more problems with those black "leaders" who look for integration of the races than those like, for example, Min. Louis Farrakhan, who are against integration and in favor of the separation of the races. The deeper problem that certain whites seem to have is w/equality of the races and the goal of integration, not of the "bigoted" attitudes of Al Sharpton or other integrationist "leaders." Too bad that some people are unwilling to be honest about their own racial issues.
Posted by: Jessi at December 7, 2003 12:46 AMThanks, Jessi, for your thoughtful comments here and elsewhere at Wizblog. Mr. Sharpton acquires the status of "race-baiter", not through any "labeling" by me or by anyone else, but rather through his own statements and actions. Does the incitement of a riot that resulted in the deaths of seven innocents, precipitated by Sharptons cries to stop the "white interloper" sound to you like the words of an "integrationist"? The point of the Jacoby article, and one with which I agree, is that the other candidates for the Democratic nomination, and the media, refuse to hold Sharpton to account for, or at least apologize for, the incendiary racist and anti-Semitic remarks he has made in the past. No other candidate could get away with this. There are too many other decent and qualified candidates for public office, both black and white, for this guy to be treated seriously as a candidate, given his track record of hatred and divisiveness.
Posted by: Dan at December 7, 2003 07:47 PM