Here’s today’s quiz: When I say “Al Sharpton,” what other name immediately comes to mind?
A. Bill de Blasio.
B. Barack Obama.
C. Tawana Brawley.
Tick-tock, time’s up. The correct answer is “all of the above,” which explains much of the current racial trouble in New York and America.
Sharpton, left to his own antics, is a public nuisance. It is a free country and he is entitled to his prejudices and polarizing activism. Sometimes he happens to be right and his megaphone occasionally brings attention to deserving cases that otherwise get none. America is big enough and strong enough to have space for people like him.
On the other hand, his personal conduct is often reprehensible, with his behavior in the Brawley hoax Exhibit A. And it’s not as if he’s cleaned up his act.
He remains a cop hater to the core, a race man who cannot see past skin color and whose business model is based on using a charge of racism as a negotiating tactic. The corporations buying his silence with their “contributions” ought to be boycotted.
He’s also a tax scofflaw who refuses to pay his fair share, thus ripping off fellow citizens, black and white.
As The New York Times reported Tuesday, he faces $4.5 million in state and federal tax liens, both personally and through companies he controls. The amounts owed are growing and his shady use of a nonprofit to enrich himself would make him politically toxic if he were anyone else.
That brings us to the heart of the problem. Despite Sharpton’s shameful conduct, he is a close confidant to the president and the mayor. Thisclose.
Imagine that — he stiffs the IRS and stirs the racial pot to boiling but still regularly gets invited to the White House to advise the president who promised to usher in a postracial society.
Sharpton was there for the announcement of Obama’s nominee to be the new attorney general, Loretta Lynch. That has to flash a chilling message to any honest prosecutor — Sharpton is above the law.
And Sharpton brought some protesters from Ferguson, Mo., to meet secretly with Obama this month, where the president urged them to stay the course, whatever that means.
I don’t blame Sharpton for his access. Most people would happily accept special treatment from the Oval Office.
The folly for granting that special treatment falls 100 percent on Obama.
Ditto for the Rachel Noerdlinger fiasco at City Hall. Yes, she was Sharpton’s spy, straight out of his netherworld — complete with her own tax lien, a cop-hating son in and out of trouble and a boyfriend with a long rap sheet.
But Sharpton didn’t put her on the city payroll at $170,000 — de Blasio did that. It was de Blasio who corrupted the Department of Investigation by giving her a pass on disclosure rules that others must obey. It was de Blasio who gave Sharpton the platform to humiliate the NYPD and smear cops as racist.
And it is de Blasio who sounds like Sharpton when he bellows that news coverage of Noerdlinger is “repulsive.”
What’s repulsive is that Obama and de Blasio use a double standard to elevate Sharpton to a dangerous level. By conferring their personal approval of him, they magnify his power and turn a nuisance into a public menace.
The Ferguson case is especially instructive. Obama and outgoing AG Eric Holder made it clear they want the white police officer involved in the shooting of the black teen charged with a crime. There is no other way to read their actions and inflammatory comments, and they and Sharpton are partially responsible for the violence that already has happened.
And even though more mob mayhem is expected if the officer is cleared by a grand jury, Obama nonetheless invited Sharpton and other protesters to the White House for encouragement. The meeting was not on the president’s public schedule.
There you have it — agitators are using threats of violence to intimidate the courts. It’s low and dirty, but you expect that from Al Sharpton.
The tragedy of our times is that the president of the United States is no better.
Bias scores highest in twisted bid for diversity
This was inevitable. Some Asian students rejected by Harvard filed a racial-discrimination claim, saying they had higher SAT scores and grade-point averages than black and Latino students who were admitted.
Whatever the outcome, the complaint is a reminder that the racial-spoils system ignores individual merit and has losers as well as winners. Fox News says the lawsuit cites a Princeton study showing that the average Asian-American applicant needed a 1460 SAT score to be admitted, while a white student with similar GPA and other qualifications needed only a 1320. Blacks needed 1010, and Hispanics 1190.
Other evidence, Fox reports, includes advice from the Princeton Review on how Asian students can beat the quota system at competitive schools:
“Don’t attach a photograph to your application and don’t answer the optional question about your ethnic background.’’
Diversity is a noble goal, but not when individuals are reduced to mere members of ethnic and racial groups. That’s not noble. It’s sordid and un-American.
Israel grieves alone
Among the troubling rituals of the troubled Mideast are the obligatory expressions of shock after each round of blood-letting. The expressions are brief because some of those professing shock are in a rush to light a fuse for the next explosion.
Yesterday’s grisly murders in a Jerusalem synagogue fit the pattern to a T.
“Pure terror and senseless brutality,” John Kerry said. The strong words marked a rare break from the hapless secretary of state’s usual criticism of Israel, a drumbeat he will resume as soon as the blood is wiped from the synagogue floor.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas didn’t have the decency to wait. He condemned the attack by two Palestinian cousins, but couldn’t resist also condemning Israeli “provocations.”
Right, we’re sorry for your loss, but you had it coming.
This is the reality Israel faces each and every day. A Palestinian drives a truck into a crowd, another one kills with a car. One uses a knife, another a screwdriver.
Yet Washington and the so-called civilized world blame the Jews. If only they would be reasonable, everyone could sit around the campfire and sing “Kumbaya.” Even Hamas would join the fun.
Alas, the Palestinians always drop the fig leaf. The public celebrations that followed the murders, the singing, dancing and passing out of candy, expose the reality. Similar jubilation scenes took place after 9/11.
This is the dominant Palestinian culture. Murder unarmed people, then celebrate and claim to be the victim.
The real wonder is that Israel doesn’t turn them all into cinders.
Ribbiting news
Headline: “Peruvians claim frog smoothies are a cure-all for asthma, low sex drive.”
Yes, but the constant croaking is a turn-off.