Sharpton is the only candidate to have been found guilty of race-baiting

[pruner]

Brawley Trio Defamed Prosecutor

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. (July 1998)

(AP)  A jury ruled that the Rev. Al Sharpton and two other legal advisers to Tawana Brawley defamed a former prosecutor by accusing him of raping the black teen-ager in 1987. The jury was then to decide how much to award the ex-prosecutor in damages.

The verdict came after a tumultuous, eight-month trial and five days of deliberations in Steven Pagones' $395 million lawsuit against Sharpton, Alton Maddox Jr. and C. Vernon Mason.

The jury found Sharpton liable for making seven defamatory statements about Pagones, Maddox for making two and Mason for one. Pagones, a former assistant county prosecutor, is white; all three Brawley advisers are black.

<snip>

After the verdict was read, Pagones leaned over to kiss his wife, Niki, as tears welled in his eyes. He called it a bittersweet victory.

Outside Dutchess County Court, he said the three Brawley advisers had "hurt a lot of people."

"They hurt race relations," he said. "We have enough problems in society, we don't need people like Mason and Maddox and Sharpton screaming out false allegations and creating further hatred."

<snip>

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/07/13/national/main13833.shtml

Sharpton has never apologized for this.

[Terwilliger]

1. Then Dean can bring it up

besides...two wrongs dont make a right...Dean should apologize...it was a goofball thing to say

[1songbird]

2. Give me a break!

[pruner]

4. why?

it boggles my mind that people around here think he's a viable candidate for anything (including dogcatcher).

[Terwilliger]

5. your candidate is becoming less viable

you'd better pay attention to that

[pruner]

6. LOL

in your (candidate's) dreams.

:scared:

[Julien Sorel]

7. He is viable.

Just not in the way you are using the word. He's accomplished far more than I thought he would in fact.

When I heard what Dean said, and saw his near non-reaction to the criticism, I was grateful as hell Sharpton was in there, because I knew Sharpton would take care of it, and he did, and he did it in a better fashion than I thought he would. Notice how much better he handled this than he did the Brawley incident -- measured, but forceful, and he didn't try to corner Dean or make any wild accusations. It's too bad all the focus is on Dean here, because I think the whole thing reflects pretty well on Al, except to the Deanites and their temporary friends in the media. Flash the Brawley card all you want, but Sharpton has grown a lot since those days, and this issue demonstrates that.

[1songbird]

8. Wes Clark is my guy.

I believe we are going in the wrong direction by discussing Sharpton as much as we have. That's all I'm saying.

[Julien Sorel]

3. WOW, for a non-issue, the Deanites sure are

scrambling hard on defence.

[meegbear]

9. That's how deanpers operate ...

dean is exempt from ALL scrutiny. But for everybody else, it's open season.

[Isome]

10. I'm not mad at either one of 'em.

But I wonder why some people have such a hard on for Al. It's possible there are malicious sentiments that have little to do with anything in his past.

It's an incredible s-t-r-e-t-c-h to equate loss of a defamation suit with being adjudicated guilty of "race baiting. Race baiting is a relatively recent phrase that certainly wasn't in use 20+ years ago --it was coined by RWers to deflect attention from their behavior. It's commonly known, by people of African descent, to be nothing more than addressing the subject of race when non-black people prefer to pretend racial inequities, or blatant racism don't exist.