See, this is why I don't usually write about politics. I'm not good at it and I don't enjoy it. But I feel strongly about this, and anyway I started it.

I don't see any reason Sharpton should be held to a higher standard because he claims to be following in King's footsteps. And do we mean King the sainted martyr, or King the womanizing headline-grabber? Sure a better black should be running for President than Sharpton. And it would have been good to have a better Jew than Lieberman, too. Politicians are all a bunch of tin-pot despots. When they get to be President they get gold pots, but they're the same guys. That doesn't mean they can't do some good for the rest of us, it just means that's not why they're in it. What Sharpton can do is help deliver a constituency the Democrats desperately need. Sure he's a louse, but he's no worse a louse than most turn out to be. (The Mafia delivered Chicago for the Kennedys. And Bill Clinton did have sex with that woman.) And he's a great speaker. He's trying to use the Democrats? Let him, and use him back, because that's what politics is all about.