This morning on Fox News, Al Sharpton defended the NAACP’s vote attacking the “racist” Tea Party by asking why the “leader of the Tea Party” is resisting calls to repudiate racism when it occurs at a Tea Party event. “Why won’t the leader of the Tea Party denounce racism?” Sharpton demanded, a demand echoed later in the morning by NAACP spokesman Hilary Shelton.
Uh…OK. Just one question, Rev. Al: Who IS the leader of the Tea Party? You tell me who it is, and I’ll get them on my radio show to denounce racism.
Sharpton knows that there ISN’T a leader of the Tea Party. No such person exists. When he claims that “Tea Party leaders” are reluctant to denounce racism, he never names anyone. Why? Because he can’t. He’s trying to send the media on a goose chase after a non-existent Tea Partier to take the focus off the behavior of the NAACP.
But if Al Sharpton wants a Tea Party leader to denounce racism—fine! No problem. Here you go:
I denounce racism.
It turns out that, according to some folks in the media, I am a national tea party “leader.” I’m even an international one (sort of), because I travelled to Ireland a few weeks ago and organized meetings with Irish citizens interested in starting their own version of the Tea Party. They’ve got a Facebook page and everything!
So I’m happy to fulfill Rev. Al’s request and denounce racism. ALL racism—including the racism of Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And what do all these vile, outspoken bigots have in common?
They’ve all been the invited speakers of the NAACP.
“If a young adult cannot produce enough of value to justify being paid a living wage, nothing we do to the minimum wage will help. He, the institutions which trained him and the society in which he lives, have far bigger problems."
--Economist Tim Harford 
