Sharpton's Debut: The Reviews Are In and It's Not Pretty

Last night saw the debut of Al Sharpton’s new show on NBC News’ cable outlet MSNBC. “Politics Nation” started with a monologue by the host delivered in his now familiar bumbling, bewildering and bombastic style. Though a couple sentences were not easy to understand, the over-all message was clear: The GOP candidates for president are like pre-1960’s racist segregationists.

Considering Sharpton’s entire career leading up to this point pretty much consists of him making loud accusations of “racist” through a bull horn, we shouldn’t be too surprised that the man MSNBC President Phil Griffin described as an “elder statesman” is going back to what he does best in this premiere show. Sharpton himself made it clear to the audience that this is what his show was going to be about. So we have a good year ahead of us leading up to election day with a nightly assault on conservatives by none other than the most successful race-baiting defamer available, Al Sharpton.

The beauty of the Al Sharpton hire is that it puts pressure on lefty TV critics to set their obvious affinity for his politics aside and actually give an honest critique of his television performance. I’ve been wondering for weeks if TV critics would run the risk of the inevitible accusation of “racism” in order to give their readers an honest assesment of Sharpton’s obviously inferior talent and abilities as a TV host.

It appears they are, in fact, willing to take that risk. Here’s the take from Ken Tucker at Entertainment Weekly:

The Rev. Al Sharpton premiered PoliticsNation on MSNBC Monday evening with an hour of booming bombast and near-obliviousness, as he steam-rolled over his guests, interrupting them to ask long, halting questions. At one point he acted as though he was having an argument with his teleprompter and said with exasperation to a guest, “Well, let me just ask you my way: Is the Tea Party going to destroy the Republican Party?”

But, of course, Tucker had to let his poitics get in the way of a full and honest criticism of Sharpton himself and instead blamed his producers for not letting Al be “Al”:

It was an awkward 60 minutes, with a lurching pace that failed to play to Sharpton’s strengths. He raised interesting issues — about new efforts at voter suppression, for example — only to lead aimless discussions of them.

[…]

If he can ever become comfortable on-camera and expand his horizons, Sharpton may eventually bring to MSNBC the combination of intellect and passion that has made so many of his press conferences over the years little wonders of argument, controversy, hype, entertainment, and enlightenment. Whether he’ll ever reach that point on PoliticsNation remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, at New York Magazine, the headline reads, “How Did Al Sharpton End Up With a Show on MSNBC?”:

Earlier, in a blustery opening segment, he was similarly rattled and unsteady as he tore through a case against Republican promises of restoring states’ rights. It was hard to follow as he shouted and pointed his pen at the camera, speaking passionately, but often in circles.

There has been quite a bit of controversy over the Sharpton hire and the work his community agitation group, National Action Network, has done for Comcast, the new owner of NBC. And MSNBC President Phil Griffin received the “Keepers of the Dream” award from the group earlier this year for doing so much to fulfil Martin Luther King’s vision for America. This was awarded while Griffin had a completely Caucasian line-up on his network.

Given teh raised eyebrows over the entanglement between Comcast/NBC and Sharpton’s controversial group, it’s surprising to see the blatant promotion of National Action Network on the well-trafficked pages of MSNBC. Take a look at the home page for the new Sharpton show. it has a highly prominent link right in the center that directs readers to the non-profit’s web site:

Sharpton finished his show with a message to the viewer explaining that he would not “be a robot reading from the teleprompter robotic-ally.” Then, for those who had still stuck around for the final minute of “Politics Nation”, Al Sharpton, NBC News’ newest star, danced.

Resist we much.