Word: sharptons
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Diallo's mother may lament the fact that no one got to know her son through the trial testimony, but court is not a talk show. And if civil rights activist Al Sharpton really wants to effect change in the New York police, he could probably be more influential by being silent rather than delivering hostile tirades. TIM LAITINEN Arlington, Texas...
...much like a kamikaze run, flying straight into the heart of Christian evangelicalism and declaring, in a speech in Virginia Beach, Va., that "neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right." And then, for good measure, a day later McCain branded G.O.P. clerics "evil" as Bush went on to sweep all three Tuesday primaries by comfy margins...
Such bluntness, says the Rev. Floyd Flake, a former New York City Congressman, has so enhanced Sharpton's stature that no Democratic candidate would think of courting the black vote without his endorsement. But Sharpton's flamboyant image and checkered past have made him an easy target for right-wingers to use against their political enemies. For example, after Bill Bradley assailed George W. Bush for hustling votes at South Carolina's Bob Jones University, which still bans interracial dating, conservative pundit George F. Will homed in on Bradley's meetings with Sharpton. Noting that Sharpton "associated with a colossal...
That's one reason I wish Sharpton, 45, had the courage to apologize to Steven Pagones, the white former prosecutor he falsely accused of kidnapping and raping Brawley. Admitting that he did Pagones an injustice--and paying the $65,000 defamation judgment Pagones won against Sharpton last year--is the right thing to do morally. And it would make it harder for Sharpton's critics to deflect his message by harping on lingering doubts about his character. When I made these points to Sharpton, he replied, "You may be right." But he insisted that he won't even consider apologizing...
...mistake, maybe even a sin, to wait that long because at his best Sharpton has the makings of a moral leader. You could sense that as he stood outside the courthouse in Albany to appeal for calm. "Let not one brick be thrown, not one bottle be thrown," said Sharpton. "Those that believe in Amadou should not betray his memory by acting like those who killed him." That's the kind of talk New York needs to hear as it searches for answers to the questions that were not asked at the trial...