Larry Elder on Al Sharpton...

One of the more despicable characters around in the US is Al Sharpton, who never fails to find racism wherever he looks.

A voice for justice? Let's go to the videotape.

Remember how Sharpton burst onto the national scene? He falsely accused then-district attorney Steven Pagones of raping Tawana Brawley. Brawley claimed a white man abducted and raped her, scrawling racial epithets on her body with feces! A grand jury later determined that Brawley made everything up to avoid punishment for staying out too late. Pagones received death threats and threats against his child. A unanimous jury found Sharpton liable for defamation, but it took Pagones over two years to collect Sharpton's judgment. Apparently, Sharpton transferred his assets to his wife's name, paying Pagones only when Sharpton's friends ponied up the money. To this day, Sharpton refuses to apologize.

A voice for justice?

In 1991, Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, was killed in a Crown Heights (Brooklyn) traffic accident, when a car driven by a Hasidic Jew went out of control. Sharpton turned it into a racial incident, leading 400 protesters — one holding a sign reading, "The White Man Is the Devil" — through Crown Heights' Jewish section. Sharpton called Jews "diamond merchants," and later said, "If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house." During four nights of rock- and bottle-throwing, a young Talmudic scholar was surrounded by a mob shouting, "Kill the Jew!" and stabbed to death. A hundred others were injured.

A voice for justice?

In 1995, a Jewish storeowner in Harlem was accused of driving out a black storeowner and sub-tenant by raising his rent. Sharpton helped to make it racial. At one rally meant to scare the Jewish owner away, Sharpton said, "[W]e will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business." Following a demonstration three months later, one protestor, an armed black man, stormed Freddy's Fashion Mart, screaming, "It's on now! All blacks out!"

The man also set fire to the building, eventually killing himself and seven others. At first, Sharpton denied any moral responsibility, after all, claimed Sharpton, he never spoke at any protest rallies, and therefore could not be held responsible for the climate. But tapes surfaced, showing Sharpton did, indeed, make at least one provocative speech. Sharpton then said, "What's wrong with denouncing white interlopers?" Eventually, he apologized — for saying "white," not "interloper."

A voice for justice?

In 1983, the FBI filmed Sharpton with an undercover agent discussing a cocaine deal. On the videotape, Sharpton asks, "What kind of time limit are we dealing with?"

"Coke?" the agent asks.

"Yeah." Sharpton says.

The phony dealer says, "Could be about the same time we have 4 million coming to us."

Sharpton: "End of April?"

Agent: "End of April. . . . Is that a good time you think?"

"Probably," Sharpton replies.

The undercover agent offers Sharpton a fee, saying, "I can get pure coke for about $35,000 a kilo. . . . Every kilogram we bring in, $3,500 to you. How does that sound?" Sharpton nods in response.

Sharpton later said that, since he did not know the men with whom he was discussing the drug deal, he was play-acting "out of fear."

A voice for justice?

This bigoted, mean-spirited, anti-Semitic, race-card-playing incendiary regularly appears on cable news shows, where, incredibly, few seem to question his moral authority.