Sharpton a good fit for Democrats

[Controlled Chaos]

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/StarPar...p20040803.shtml

 

Sharpton a good fit for Democrats

Star Parker

 

 

I never thought I'd be nodding my head in agreement with Al Sharpton. However, I certainly was when, at the conclusion of his address to the Democratic National Convention, he noted that only in a country as great and free as ours could someone like him run for the nomination for the presidency.

 

Unfortunately, I had to sit through a whole speech of impassioned distortions and insults to America, Americans and particularly black Americans, waiting for Reverend Al to stumble into something true.

 

Drawing on his vast foreign-affairs experience acquired on the streets of Brooklyn, Sharpton opened his remarks by criticizing President Bush's foreign policy. It was entertaining to hear the man who achieved fame with the Tawana Brawley charade attack the president for supposedly misleading the nation.

 

Clearly, Sharpton let our black secretary of state and our black national security adviser off the hook for supposedly misleading the nation on Iraq because surely, in his view, they are just puppets, like all black Republicans, so they can't be held responsible.

 

My particular concern is the destructive and wrong message that Sharpton delivered to all African-Americans in inner cities around our country who listened to his address. What did he tell them? That government doesn't care about your personal life, your moral life or how you conduct yourselves as citizens and as people. But it is the government's job to "guarantee" that food is in your refrigerator.

 

This is exactly what a community that is being torn apart by AIDS, illegitimacy, abortion, crime and 50 percent school dropouts needed to hear. Particularly from someone who calls himself a minister.

 

Sharpton then went on to infer that without political intervention, Clarence Thomas would never have gotten through law school. Another beautiful message to black children. You'll never make it on your own. You're a basket case without government. Don't even believe that that black man who is a justice on the United States Supreme Court is there because of his brains and talent.

 

Is it any wonder that we have problems in the black community? In the Al Sharpton view of the world, blacks who are making it in our country today fall into two categories: those who are making it because government makes it possible for them to make it, and those who are making it because they have sold out and have been bought off by the white establishment.

 

The idea that a black man or woman has innate ability and can make it under any circumstances with faith, values and hard work is either incomprehensible to Al Sharpton or an idea that he perceives too incompatible with his career path to be given any credence.

 

Sharpton claimed that his remarks were constructed to answer the questions that George W. Bush posed in his recent address to the Urban League. Frankly, I would have found it much more interesting if Sharpton chose instead to answer Bill Cosby's questions about why blacks are not waking up to the fact that they need to dump the politics of impotence and victimization and start taking personal responsibility for their lives.

 

There seems to be some good news here, however. Sharpton, in his nomination bid, picked up a whopping 26 delegates, barely 1 percent of the 2,000-plus needed. He finished nowhere in the South Carolina primary, heavily dominated by black voters.

 

Clearly, the Sharpton message to continue worshipping the welfare state is not selling well to black voters. This leaves two questions.

 

First, why did the Democratic Party give a man with no political future, whose presidential bid was a joke, a high-profile speaking slot at the convention? Why, for instance, if they wanted to showcase a black politician, didn't they give the slot to someone like Rep. Harold Ford, who talks about ownership and choice and new ideas for the Democratic Party? The answer here is clearly that the Democrats wanted a black preacher who could stir the crowd up, play to their worst fears and drive home the true agenda of the Democratic Party, which is exactly the left-wing, big-government, welfare-state stuff that Sharpton is talking about.

 

The next question is: If black voters are not buying this agenda from Al Sharpton, why are they buying it from two mega-millionaire white guys who know as much about the realities of life in the inner city as black kids in South Central L.A. know about life at Yale? The Kerry-Edwards ticket is perhaps the wealthiest team to ever run for the White House. Do blacks really need these guys, with their $2,000 suits and $300 haircuts, telling them that they need government to solve all their problems, decide where and how to educate their kids and provide for their health care? As the rappers say, "Let's get real." The Democrats should have just nominated Al Sharpton.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

Ah, TownHall.com. First off, he is stating that any person who does not have foreign policy experience is not qualified to get involved in foreign policy. If he holds that to be true then that discounts damn near all Americans from making any statements about foreign policy (i.e. Ann Coulter, Joe Scarborough, etc.) and I'm sure he doesn't want that blade to cut both ways.

 

Secondly, it was a mistake re: Tawana Brawley. He said he believed her story, much like the Senate Intelligence Committee said they believed that Iraq was a threat. Upon later investigation, they found it to be a huge mistake. Plus, the idea that because Sharpton screwed up gives Bush carte blanche is ridiculous.

 

As for the part of the speech about the food in the kitchen, his statement was more that government does not need to be worried about what consentual adults are doing in the bedroom but rather exert their concern on people going hungry. Also, as an author of this article who seems quite disturbed by governmental growth, I'm sure the author's voiced his/her concern about the expansive government growth under the Bush/Cheney administration, right. Oh wait...Also "The Kerry-Edwards ticket is perhaps the wealthiest team to ever run for the White House. Do blacks really need these guys, with their $2,000 suits and $300 haircuts..." Um...Bush and Cheney aren't exactly blue collar Americans either. The simple fact is that Americans don't need either Bush/Cheney or Kerry/Edwards because they are all a bunch of aristocratic goons.

 

I'm not here to defend Sharpton because I disagree with him on certain things but this article contained a lot of cheap partisan shots. The author talks a lot about "impassioned distortions." Methinks the pot just called the kettle black.

[Controlled Chaos]

Fact is she made a lot of points. You picked out the smart ass comments she made...ie: "Drawing on his vast foreign-affairs experience acquired on the streets of Brooklyn" and "It was entertaining to hear the man who achieved fame with the Tawana Brawley charade" as if that was what her article was about. It was two sentences in the article. Yeah it was bashing from the right, but that's what an article from someone on the right will do....throw a couple left jabs while making the point. Just as someone from the left...hence the majority of major media outlets, throws right jabs while making their point. Right Jabs, Right Uppercuts, Right Roundhouses, Right Elbows, etc....

 

I just found it very unusal for a black female journalist to criticize Sharpton. He gets a free pass from everyone else. It was nice to see someone criticize him, especially someone he can't claim is a racist.

 

I'm glad you weren't defending Sharpton...he is a liar and a crook and there is no defense for him or his actions.

 

and fact is...Many Republicans have voiced their displeasure with the expansive government growth...Im not sure if she has or hasn't...but you have no right to assume she hasn't...

[kapkomet]

Bush has grown the government way more then I'd like, but that's a separate discussion.

 

Funny thing is, listen to both of these two idiots on the campaign trail promising the whole friggin' world, and even if Kerry repeals the tax cuts, there's still no way in hell all this stuff gets paid for.

 

The government is bloated, and all these people are phonies.

 

It's a sad day (state) in America.

[cwsox]

I'll defend Sharpton.

 

About the same time he erred in the Brawley case, G W Bush was a coke snorting alchoholic getting away with drunk driving because of daddy.

 

If you allow one person to be forgiven for mistakes in the past you must allow both.

 

Sharpton's speech to the convention was very impressive.

 

He has established a worthy record on which to stand as a public citizen.

 

I'll stand with Al Sharpton any day. There was a time I never would have said that. But I will now.

[kapkomet]

I'll stand with Al Sharpton any day.  There was a time I never would have said that.  But I will now.

Why?

[LowerCaseRepublican]

Fact is she made a lot of points.  You picked out the smart ass comments she made...ie: "Drawing on his vast foreign-affairs experience acquired on the streets of Brooklyn" and  "It was entertaining to hear the man who achieved fame with the Tawana Brawley charade"  as if that was what her article was about.  It was two sentences in the article.  Yeah it was bashing from the right, but that's what an article from someone on the right will do....throw a couple left jabs while making the point.  Just as someone from the left...hence the majority of major media outlets, throws right jabs while making their point.  Right Jabs, Right Uppercuts, Right Roundhouses, Right Elbows, etc....

 

I just found it very unusal for a black female journalist to criticize Sharpton.  He gets a free pass from everyone else.  It was nice to see someone criticize him, especially someone he can't claim is a racist.

 

I'm glad you weren't defending Sharpton...he is a liar and a crook and there is no defense for him or his actions.

 

and fact is...Many Republicans have voiced their displeasure with the expansive government growth...Im not sure if she has or hasn't...but you have no right to assume she hasn't...

She loses a lot of the credibility with the snide remarks. That's what I was attempting to say. As to if she has or hasn't, she had the opportunity to address it but instead attributed it to a "left wing" ideology. That's where I get pissed.

 

Many Republicans have come out against the neo-conservative hijacking of the Republican party and it's sad that more people are loyal to the name Republican (or Democrat) rather than the individual beliefs of the candidate that the parties are shoving down our throats. As Kap stated "Funny thing is, listen to both of these two idiots on the campaign trail promising the whole friggin' world, and even if Kerry repeals the tax cuts, there's still no way in hell all this stuff gets paid for. The government is bloated, and all these people are phonies. It's a sad day (state) in America."

[Controlled Chaos]

I'll defend Sharpton.

 

About the same time he erred in the Brawley case, G W Bush was a coke snorting alchoholic getting away with drunk driving because of daddy.

 

If you allow one person to be forgiven for mistakes in the past you must allow both.

 

Sharpton's speech to the convention was very impressive.

 

He has established a worthy record on which to stand as a public citizen.

 

I'll stand with Al Sharpton any day.  There was a time I never would have said that.  But I will now.

1987: Sharpton spreads the incendiary Tawana Brawley hoax, insisting heatedly that a 15-year-old black girl was abducted, raped, and smeared with feces by a group of white men. He singles out Steve Pagones, a young prosecutor. Pagones is wholly innocent -- the crime never occurred -- but Sharpton taunts him: "If we're lying, sue us, so we can . . . prove you did it." Pagones does sue, and eventually wins a $345,000 verdict for defamation. To this day, Sharpton refuses to recant his unspeakable slander or to apologize for his role in the odious affair.

 

1991: A Hasidic Jewish driver in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section accidentally kills Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, and antisemitic riots erupt. Sharpton races to pour gasoline on the fire. At Gavin's funeral he rails against the "diamond merchants" -- code for Jews -- with "the blood of innocent babies" on their hands. He mobilizes hundreds of demonstrators to march through the Jewish neighborhood, chanting, "No justice, no peace." A rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, is surrounded by a mob shouting "Kill the Jews!" and stabbed to death.

 

1995: When the United House of Prayer, a large black landlord in Harlem, raises the rent on Freddy's Fashion Mart, Freddy's white Jewish owner is forced to raise the rent on his subtenant, a black-owned music store. A landlord-tenant dispute ensues; Sharpton uses it to incite racial hatred. "We will not stand by," he warns malignantly, "and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business." Sharpton's National Action Network sets up picket lines; customers going into Freddy's are spat on and cursed as "traitors" and "Uncle Toms." Some protesters shout, "Burn down the Jew store!" and simulate striking a match. "We're going to see that this cracker suffers," says Sharpton's colleague Morris Powell. On Dec. 8, one of the protesters bursts into Freddy's, shoots four employees point-blank, then sets the store on fire. Seven employees die in the inferno.

 

Sharpton, who has long been dogged by allegations of financial impropriety, was acquitted in 1990 of charges he stole from a civil rights organization and pleaded guilty in 1993 to not filing a state income tax return in 1986.

 

A report filed in July showed that the Internal Revenue Service has begun an audit of his finances, and in August, a travel agency filed a lawsuit claiming he owed them for nearly $200,000 in travel bills.

 

Last week, Sharpton's campaign filed for $100,000 in federal matching funds, plus additional funds of between $30,000 and $75,000.

 

Not to mention he is a full blown racist...

 

 

Defend away....lucky for you god is on your side....cause your credibility gets worse and worse with each post

[IlliniBob72]

1987: Sharpton spreads the incendiary Tawana Brawley hoax, insisting heatedly that a 15-year-old black girl was abducted, raped, and smeared with feces by a group of white men.  He singles out Steve Pagones, a young prosecutor.  Pagones is wholly innocent -- the crime never occurred -- but Sharpton taunts him: "If we're lying, sue us, so we can . . . prove you did it."  Pagones does sue, and eventually wins a $345,000 verdict for defamation.  To this day, Sharpton refuses to recant his unspeakable slander or to apologize for his role in the odious affair.

 

1991: A Hasidic Jewish driver in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section accidentally kills Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, and antisemitic riots erupt.  Sharpton races to pour gasoline on the fire.  At Gavin's funeral he rails against the "diamond merchants" -- code for Jews -- with "the blood of innocent babies" on their hands.  He mobilizes hundreds of demonstrators to march through the Jewish neighborhood, chanting, "No justice, no peace."  A rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, is surrounded by a mob shouting "Kill the Jews!" and stabbed to death.

 

1995: When the United House of Prayer, a large black landlord in Harlem, raises the rent on Freddy's Fashion Mart, Freddy's white Jewish owner is forced to raise the rent on his subtenant, a black-owned music store.  A landlord-tenant dispute ensues; Sharpton uses it to incite racial hatred.  "We will not stand by," he warns malignantly, "and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business."  Sharpton's National Action Network sets up picket lines; customers going into Freddy's are spat on and cursed as "traitors" and "Uncle Toms."  Some protesters shout, "Burn down the Jew store!"  and simulate striking a match.  "We're going to see that this cracker suffers," says Sharpton's colleague Morris Powell.  On Dec. 8, one of the protesters bursts into Freddy's, shoots four employees point-blank, then sets the store on fire.  Seven employees die in the inferno.

 

Sharpton, who has long been dogged by allegations of financial impropriety, was acquitted in 1990 of charges he stole from a civil rights organization and pleaded guilty in 1993 to not filing a state income tax return in 1986.

 

A report filed in July showed that the Internal Revenue Service has begun an audit of his finances, and in August, a travel agency filed a lawsuit claiming he owed them for nearly $200,000 in travel bills.

 

Last week, Sharpton's campaign filed for $100,000 in federal matching funds, plus additional funds of between $30,000 and $75,000.

 

Not to mention he is a full blown racist...

 

 

Defend away....lucky for you god is on your side....cause your credibility gets worse and worse with each post

But c'mon now, the guy gives good speeches, and dances pretty well too.

[cwsox]

Defend away....lucky for you god is on your side....cause your credibility gets worse and worse with each post

I've never worried if God is my side.

 

My concern is to be with God in clear conscience.

 

 

And for each of us, our own credibility comes in that dialogue.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

I'll defend Sharpton.

 

About the same time he erred in the Brawley case, G W Bush was a coke snorting alchoholic getting away with drunk driving because of daddy.

 

If you allow one person to be forgiven for mistakes in the past you must allow both.

 

Sharpton's speech to the convention was very impressive.

 

He has established a worthy record on which to stand as a public citizen.

 

I'll stand with Al Sharpton any day.  There was a time I never would have said that.  But I will now.

1987: Sharpton spreads the incendiary Tawana Brawley hoax, insisting heatedly that a 15-year-old black girl was abducted, raped, and smeared with feces by a group of white men. He singles out Steve Pagones, a young prosecutor. Pagones is wholly innocent -- the crime never occurred -- but Sharpton taunts him: "If we're lying, sue us, so we can . . . prove you did it." Pagones does sue, and eventually wins a $345,000 verdict for defamation. To this day, Sharpton refuses to recant his unspeakable slander or to apologize for his role in the odious affair.

 

1991: A Hasidic Jewish driver in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section accidentally kills Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, and antisemitic riots erupt. Sharpton races to pour gasoline on the fire. At Gavin's funeral he rails against the "diamond merchants" -- code for Jews -- with "the blood of innocent babies" on their hands. He mobilizes hundreds of demonstrators to march through the Jewish neighborhood, chanting, "No justice, no peace." A rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, is surrounded by a mob shouting "Kill the Jews!" and stabbed to death.

 

1995: When the United House of Prayer, a large black landlord in Harlem, raises the rent on Freddy's Fashion Mart, Freddy's white Jewish owner is forced to raise the rent on his subtenant, a black-owned music store. A landlord-tenant dispute ensues; Sharpton uses it to incite racial hatred. "We will not stand by," he warns malignantly, "and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business." Sharpton's National Action Network sets up picket lines; customers going into Freddy's are spat on and cursed as "traitors" and "Uncle Toms." Some protesters shout, "Burn down the Jew store!" and simulate striking a match. "We're going to see that this cracker suffers," says Sharpton's colleague Morris Powell. On Dec. 8, one of the protesters bursts into Freddy's, shoots four employees point-blank, then sets the store on fire. Seven employees die in the inferno.

 

Sharpton, who has long been dogged by allegations of financial impropriety, was acquitted in 1990 of charges he stole from a civil rights organization and pleaded guilty in 1993 to not filing a state income tax return in 1986.

 

A report filed in July showed that the Internal Revenue Service has begun an audit of his finances, and in August, a travel agency filed a lawsuit claiming he owed them for nearly $200,000 in travel bills.

 

Last week, Sharpton's campaign filed for $100,000 in federal matching funds, plus additional funds of between $30,000 and $75,000.

 

Not to mention he is a full blown racist...

 

 

Defend away....lucky for you god is on your side....cause your credibility gets worse and worse with each post

Let's look at what cwsox is defending..... He's defending someone who is guilty of slander, twice guilty of incitement to riot ( making him indirectly guilty in the murder of 8 people ), racism, anti-semitisim, tax evasion, theft and god knows what else that hasn't been made public. Yeah, this is a guy that's really a paragon of American values. This piece of scum is given a prominent speaking role at the Democratic convention? I thought liberals frowned on all this type of activity?

 

He makes baseless charges about W being on coke & talks about how daddy got W off the hook for DUI but I dont see any venom directed toward Teddy Kennedy who got hammered, drove a young girl off a bridge and got away with an "I'm sorry".

 

 

Worthy record to stand on as a public citizen indeed. He should be in prison.

 

CW, I dont think God is with you on this one. LOL!