On Monday, Al Sharpton was back on MSNBC to deliver stinging criticism for a national leader who was partying as Ferguson, Missouri burned. Oddly, it wasn’t the vacationing President Obama who Sharpton targeted for criticism, but rather New Jersey Governor Christ Christie.
Fresh off his stint Sunday as a rally speaker at a church in Ferguson, Missouri, to bring verbal aide to the family of the teenager shot a week ago by a Ferguson police officer, Sharpton winged his way back to the MSNBC studios to continue to beat the Ferguson drum.
On Monday afternoon, Sharpton appeared on Tamron Hall’s News Nation to criticize a national politician for his lack of response to the riots in Ferguson. One might think that Sharpton was looking to President Obama, who spent the whole week during the riots on vacation at exclusive Martha’s Vineyard.
But Sharpton apparently had no desire to criticize President Barack Obama, the nation’s primary leader. Instead, Sharpton was oddly full of condemnation for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Instead of criticizing the nation’s leader for dancing at a birthday party, going out on the town for dinner, or taking in jazz concerts, Sharpton was upset that Christie was at a fundraiser dancing with actor Jamie Foxx.
“This is now a national, central issue, and anyone running for president needs to come up with a formula, or, in my opinion, they forfeit their right to be taken seriously,” Sharpton said on Monday. “I’m amazed that we’re not hearing from leading candidates … Chris Christie or Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton. I land in New York this morning, and I see Chris Christie dancing with Jamie Foxx.”
***UPDATE***
Governor Christie’s office sent along a note to Breitbart this morning to point out that Christie did, indeed, make some remarks about the situation in Ferguson. So, contrary to Sharpton’s assumption that Christie has ignored the issue, he has not.
Here is what Christie said on August 15 in response to a question about the actions of the police in Ferguson:
I think it’s very dangerous to make generalizations about anybody like that Matt. We have millions of dedicated men and women who are police officers across this country who work at grave danger every day to try to make sure they protect innocent people across the country, and so I’m not going to get into this game of, you know, generalizing and characterizing people in that way. Everyone should be judged on their merits. Whatever happened in Ferguson, we have a justice system in this country that will be able to make that judgment and if there are people that need to be held accountable I’m confident they will be. But I’m not going to get into this business of generalizing against law enforcement officers. It’s not right.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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