Amidst all the Morning Joe talk about the Eric Garner case today, there was Al Sharpton looking out for #1. When Mika Brzezinski began to praise NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio for the absence of violence last night, Sharpton jumped in to shut her down and claim credit for himself.
There's "the mayor and others," sniffed Sharpton, silencing her, but the real kudos for the lack of violence go to "movements" and "organized bodies." Which movements and organized bodies, might you ask? Well, Sharpton—sporting a big button from his National Action Network—went on to praise the way a non-violent march on Staten Island had been organized by . . . Al Sharpton.
In an ironic moment, Sharpton said that the families of those involved in recent cases "are not activists that are looking for political chips." Al oughta know.
Note: I watched de Blasio's speech last night, and found him to be a voice of calm and relative reason. So Mika might have been on to something, but Al was not about to let anyone else get the lion's share of the lauding.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Joe you talked about New York. I really think, you know, in Ferguson we saw a city that officials were really out of tune with the neighborhood and I think Mayor de Blasio was a real leader yesterday. He spoke from the heart, no notes. He spoke with his own personal connection to it. And I think one of the reasons why we didn't see violence is because New York is a great city, and --
AL SHARPTON: Well, I also think --
BRZEZINSKI: -- he is in tune --
SHARPTON: -- there are mechanisms, the mayor and others, but I think there are movements that have for months been on this. We had about 12,000 people marching in Staten Island and people said there was going to be a riot and there was nothing all the way through this. And I think that when you have organized bodies that are there saying wait a minute we want to get change not just --
BRZEZINSKI: -- we have problems.
SHARPTON: Yeah, we have problems, but we want to solve the problem. We're connected to the families that are suffering. These are not activists that are looking for political chips. They want to see real change and when you have that, people behave in a way that they don't want to let that family down.
