Sharpton Says, "Gimme That Fuckin' Limelight":
Last night, Rev. Al Sharpton fucked up the shit of the Democratic stage show going on in Boston. Going off script, going longer than his allotted six minutes, Sharpton spoke with a passion and rage that distilled so much of what people wanted to hear, especially the people in that convention hall who, if they heard one more fuckin' time about Kerry's Vietnam War experience, they were gonna drown themselves in the Mekong. Sharpton delineated, incisively, the differences between the Bush world of violence and fear and a vision of an all-encompassing nation devoted to truth, justice, creating a real American way: "I have come here tonight to say, that the only choice we have to preserve our freedoms at this point in history is to elect John Kerry the president of the United States," he said, reminding voters that if they want to keep civil liberties safe, they'd better elect someone who won't appoint more Scalias and Thomases to the Supreme Court. (Said Sharpton, "I suggest to you tonight that if George Bush had selected the court in '54, Clarence Thomas would have never got to law school," thus giving the runny shits to the bowels of Kerry's campaign team.)

Sharpton offered a nation that includes immigrants ("We cannot welcome those to come [to America] and then try and act as though any culture will not be respected or treated inferior. We cannot look at the Latino community and preach one language. No one gave them an English test before they sent them to Iraq to fight for America"), non-whites ("Mr. President, in all due respect, Mr. President, read my lips: Our vote is not for sale"), and homosexuals ("The promise of America is that government does not seek to regulate your behavior in the bedroom, but to guarantee your right to provide food in the kitchen").

And, in a "fuck you" to the Republicans, Sharpton offered how "family values" are not the exclusive property of the wealthy and the white: "Family values is not just those with two-car garages and a retirement plan. Retirement plans are good. But family values also are those who had to make nothing stretch into something happening, who had to make ends meet." Sharpton received seven standing ovations, driving the conventioneers into a frenzy, making white people raise their hands as if they felt the power.

Over on MSNBC, Chris Matthews, who always looks as if he's just been fucked in the ass and has to take a giant dump, interrupted Sharpton's speech (not even carried by Fox, of course, but carried in full on CNN) to puncture everyone's balloon by saying that Sharpton "began" his career on "a lie," before bringing up the ever-lingering Tawana Brawely debacle: "You have to remember that this man basically began his career, as charming as he is, on a lie. He said that a young woman in New York had been raped and beat up by police. It turns out there was no truth to that story." Then he got Howard Fineman and Doris Kearns Goodwin to get all white and upper middle class on Sharpton. Said Goodwin, "In fact, the yelling in the rally right now is like chalk on a board, a blackboard. It's grating." Aaah, so sweet when the patricians speak. Earlier, it was almost as fun when the only speakers they could think to compare Sharpton to were Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama.

Now, do you think when George Bush speaks, Matthews has ever said, "You have to remember that this man began his career, as charming as he is, on business failures. He's had to get bailed out of every business venture he's ever stuck his fingers into"? Sure, Sharpton's a grandstander, a self-aggrandizer, unafraid of sleeping with the enemy, and, yeah, Brawley was a fuck-up (even though one way to read the events of that long hot summer in the late 1980s was "Jesus Christ, have race relations in New York City really devolved to this point?"). But Sharpton's also been a passionate advocate for civil rights, and, shit, he's a mesmerizing speaker. If we're gonna hold people accountable for their pasts any time they speak, then let's rumble, motherfuckers. Chris Matthews better have a big fuckin' list when Jerry Falwell gets up at the GOP Convention next month.