Writing at The Huffington Post, MSNBC’s Al Sharpton says that Republican politicians are responsible for the presence of a Confederate flag-holding rally attendee at Sunday’s Million Vet March. This despite the fact that Sharpton’s own fans and followers have included the murderous arsonist of Freddie’s Fashion Mart, sign-carryers calling for the extermination of Jews (in Crown Heights, followers of Sharpton chanted “Heil Hitler!” as he ranted about “diamond dealers”), and people calling for the murder of George Zimmerman.
Sharpton wrote:
During the ‘Million Vet March’ this weekend, a man waved a Confederate flag in front of the White House as the protest expanded to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Yes, a man waved a Confederate flag in front of the home of an African-American family. And the elected officials who organized, spoke, marched or promoted this rally are just as responsible as that man for this ugly display of bigotry.
Sharpton then pitched his new book, The Rejected Stone, and suggested that he had himself condemned followers who had committed acts of which he did not approve (although only after the fact, of course): “[H]ate cannot ever be tolerated or accepted — even quietly. One cannot ignore a blatant act of racism or intolerance by simply stating that they did not commit the act themselves. There are many times in my own life when I had to condemn the actions of others because they may have taken place at an event I organized, or around an issue I was heavily involved in.”
Sharpton specifically singled out Senator Ted Cruz, claiming that he hadn’t sufficiently condemned the presence of the Confederate flag.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).
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