Monday, January 12, 2004
Al's Bomb-Throwing
It's time for Al Sharpton to drop out. Last night he succeeded, once again, in promoting himself (a lost cause) by lowering the level of debate -- this time by smearing the front-runner Howard Dean.
To the delight of the media, we might add. Sputtering faux-liberal Chris Matthews could hardly contain his glee, immediately zeroing in on Sharpton's pointed and pointless attack on Dean as the most important moment of the debate -- when in fact it was meaningess.
Sharpton's point, boiled down to its essence, is that Howard Dean can't (or shouldn't?) discuss the racial problems in the Democratic Party because he didn't have any minorities in his cabinet as Governor of Vermont.
Has Al Sharpton been to Vermont?
Leaving aside the fact that Dean was governor of Vermont and not Alabama, and that he had a senior staff member who was Latino -- leaving all that aside -- what the hell does this prove?
Is he calling Dean a racist?
Is he saying the candidates shouldn't discuss race?
Is he saying that you have to have a lot of minority constituents in your state to care about minorities?
Is he saying because Dean didn't scour Vermont for cabinet-level minority appointees he can't discuss race issues in the Democratic party?
Is he suggesting that only he, Sharpton, can discuss minority issues? Or that you have to get his permission to do so?
Or was he just throwing bombs to make himself the center of attention?
Carol Moseley Braun (who would make a great Secretary of State, in our opinion) had the guts and the presence of mind to call Sharpton on this useless, distracting and destructive crap -- and had us cheering -- but it was too late as far as the media was concerned. Even the Times made this stupid exchange the center of its story (and headline).
In truth, Sharpton's specific quote was particularly stupid: "If you want to lecture people on race," he said, "you ought to have the background and track record to do that."
Dean hasn't lectured anyone on race. What he's said is that the GOP has for 36 years successfully used race to divide people who should share the common interests of the Democratic party, and that the party should talk about this openly. What's wrong with that? Why do you have to have Al Sharpton's permission to do that?
For the record, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, 96.8% of the population of Vermont (which has an extraordinarily small government) are "White persons". One half of one percent (0.5%) are "Black or African American persons". That works out to 3,065 in the whole state. How many are Democrats we don't know.
0.4% of Vermonters are "American Indian and Alaska Native persons". 0.9% are "Asian persons", and 0.9% are "Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin".
In other words, it's not exactly a melting pot. So what? Is Sharpton suggesting Dean should have trucked minorites into Vermont so he could hire some?
The way we see it, the most pressing issue facing African-Americans today is getting their damn votes counted. Does Sharpton think George Bush and the Republicans are the ones to handle that problem?
To the delight of the media, we might add. Sputtering faux-liberal Chris Matthews could hardly contain his glee, immediately zeroing in on Sharpton's pointed and pointless attack on Dean as the most important moment of the debate -- when in fact it was meaningess.
Sharpton's point, boiled down to its essence, is that Howard Dean can't (or shouldn't?) discuss the racial problems in the Democratic Party because he didn't have any minorities in his cabinet as Governor of Vermont.
Has Al Sharpton been to Vermont?
Leaving aside the fact that Dean was governor of Vermont and not Alabama, and that he had a senior staff member who was Latino -- leaving all that aside -- what the hell does this prove?
Is he calling Dean a racist?
Is he saying the candidates shouldn't discuss race?
Is he saying that you have to have a lot of minority constituents in your state to care about minorities?
Is he saying because Dean didn't scour Vermont for cabinet-level minority appointees he can't discuss race issues in the Democratic party?
Is he suggesting that only he, Sharpton, can discuss minority issues? Or that you have to get his permission to do so?
Or was he just throwing bombs to make himself the center of attention?
Carol Moseley Braun (who would make a great Secretary of State, in our opinion) had the guts and the presence of mind to call Sharpton on this useless, distracting and destructive crap -- and had us cheering -- but it was too late as far as the media was concerned. Even the Times made this stupid exchange the center of its story (and headline).
In truth, Sharpton's specific quote was particularly stupid: "If you want to lecture people on race," he said, "you ought to have the background and track record to do that."
Dean hasn't lectured anyone on race. What he's said is that the GOP has for 36 years successfully used race to divide people who should share the common interests of the Democratic party, and that the party should talk about this openly. What's wrong with that? Why do you have to have Al Sharpton's permission to do that?
For the record, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, 96.8% of the population of Vermont (which has an extraordinarily small government) are "White persons". One half of one percent (0.5%) are "Black or African American persons". That works out to 3,065 in the whole state. How many are Democrats we don't know.
0.4% of Vermonters are "American Indian and Alaska Native persons". 0.9% are "Asian persons", and 0.9% are "Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin".
In other words, it's not exactly a melting pot. So what? Is Sharpton suggesting Dean should have trucked minorites into Vermont so he could hire some?
The way we see it, the most pressing issue facing African-Americans today is getting their damn votes counted. Does Sharpton think George Bush and the Republicans are the ones to handle that problem?
