Rev. Al

Peter Beinart does does a brutal takedown of Al Shaprton in this week's New Republic. Beinart contrasts the record, style and beliefs of Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who ran for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1988 and whom Sharpton is frequently compared to. When put against Jackson, Sharpton looks pretty lacking. As Beinart writes:

Sharpton hasn't emerged as the leader of an ideological wing of the Democratic Party because, unlike Jackson, he isn't that ideological. By 1988, Jackson had become an all-purpose left-wing gadfly, the '80s equivalent of Ralph Nader or Michael Moore. He marched with striking coal-miners, picketed outsourcing corporations, and renegotiated loans for struggling family farmers. And he explicitly disavowed racialism, noting that the poorest Americans were "young, white, and female."

Ultimately, then, Sharpton has failed to duplicate Jackson's 1988 accomplishment, because, for all their superficial similarities, the two men have different missions. Jackson amassed power by using his African American base as the foundation of a broader left-liberal coalition. Sharpton amasses power by threatening to withhold that base from a larger left-liberal coalition.....Jackson might not have always believed the right things, but at least he believed in things other than himself.


In addition to Beinart's biting analysis, I'd like to point out that Sharpton seems to be an interloper in the Civil Rights movement. Jackson was with King when he was assassinated, Sharpton came in years later. Now, I am not saying anyone that wasn't involved with Civil Rights after 1968 is "illegitimate", but when you combine this point with Sharpton's tendency for show boating, his lack of seriousness about policy and overall sleaziness (he's been hiding money in order to avoid paying off his settlement with the police officers he helped libel in the Tawana Brawley case), it becomes pretty clear who Reverend Sharpton is looking out for.