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Posted at 11:14am on Jun. 16, 2008 The Sharpton Shakedown

Not The Al Sharpton Barack Obama Knew?

By Dan McLaughlin

There are few more reprehensible people in American politics than former Democratic presidential and Senate candidate Rev. Al Sharpton, a man whose litany of public sins and scandals stretches from slander to anti-Semitism to theft to tax evasion to incitement of lethal riots and deadly arson. By Sharpton's own admission in response to a federal investigation that resulted in a raid of his offices in December, "I have probably been under every investigation known to man and I can't remember a time that I've not been under investigation." No decent person would embrace this man.

Of course, Sharpton played his own role in this year's Democratic primaries, playing the 'bad cop' who darkly threatened disorder and litigation if the DNC ruled in favor of Hillary Clinton on the disputed Florida and Michigan delegations. These were not idle threats, as many establishment Democrats recall how Sharpton's falling-out with a pair of white Democrats who had defeated minority candidates in racially-divisive primaries (Bob Abrams, who beat Sharpton in the 1992 Senate primary, and Mark Green, who beat Fernando Ferrer in the 2001 Mayoral primary) contributed to their defeats in the general election. Of course, the DNC caved, awarding Hillary her Florida delegates but effectively handing the nomination to Obama with its ruling on Michigan; mission accomplished. And Gothamist notes that Sharpton's National Action Network does not lack for friends, or at least supplicants, in high places in the Democratic establishment:

Sharpton's organization, a non-profit founded to promote black civil rights, holds a yearly, influential conference in April (last year a who's who in the Democratic party attended, from former President Bill Clinton to Senator Barack Obama, from Senator Hillary Clinton to DNC chair Howard Dean) and attracts corporate sponsorship.

Given his background, the latest news on Sharpton, via an investigation by the New York Post, should surprise absolutely nobody, but it's an instructive look nonetheless in Sharpton's business as usual.

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