Ramaswamy's riposte to Al Sharpton.

It was called the American Revolution. We were successful. We won. https://t.co/cOuJzkCfVl

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) August 3, 2023

"If you’re faced with all these challenges, you have to remain calm. What’s the point of worrying about something..."

"... worrying is not going to make your problems disappear. I attribute this to my father and grandfather. They are very very stoic."

Said Daniel Penny, quoted in "Daniel Penny, charged in Jordan Neely death, breaks silence: 'I am not a white supremacist'" (NY Post).

Asked about something Al Sharpton said about him, Penny said he wasn't sure who Al Sharpton was: "I don’t really know celebrities that well."

Celebrities.

And he doesn't know what's going on in social media: "I don’t follow anyone, and I don’t have social media because I really don’t like the attention and I just think there are better ways to spend your time. I don’t like the limelight."

"Going home after a long day, I cannot help but observe that those of my colleagues who were protesting so vigorously that the Court’s judgment today will do it irreparable harm..."

"... have spared no pains – in a veritable blizzard of separate dissents – to assist that result. Even to the point of footnote 4 in Ruth’s offering (I call it the Al Sharpton footnote), alleging on the basis of press reports 'obstacles to voting disproportionately encountered by black voters.' I am the last person to complain that dissents should not be thorough and hard-hitting (though it would be nice to have them somewhat consolidated). But before vigorously dissenting (or, come to think of it, at any other time) I have never urged the majority of my colleagues to alter their honest view of the case because of the potential 'damage to the Court.' I just thought I would observe the incongruity. Good night. Sincerely, Nino."

Wrote Justice Scalia to the rest of the Supreme Court on December 12, 2000, quoted in a CNN article by Joan Biskupic, "New documents show how Sandra Day O’Connor helped George W. Bush win the 2000 election."

To paraphrase: I'm all for vigorous dissents — I do them myself — but I dissent to tell the truth as I see it, and you just did it to say we ought shrink from the truth. Ha!

ADDED: That headline is terrible.  The article is about how Sandra Day O’Connor kept Chief Justice Rehnquist from having a majority for deciding the case the same way on a different legal theory. Either way Bush would win, so she didn't "help him win."

"But the assumption that these tactics would go unchallenged when deployed by a Democratic administration, as was often the case in the past, appears to have been a serious miscalculation."

"The spotlight that Trump shined on the southern border for four years is still plugged in. The public is still paying attention. And images that evoke the era of slavery—with fair-skinned men on horseback rushing Black migrants, whiplike reins flailing behind them—have added to a long-simmering push from the left to consider immigration policy not simply in terms of economics or national security, but also in terms of race.... Members of the Congressional Black Caucus were whisked to the White House for a meeting this week, and Al Sharpton, who traveled to the border recently, told The Washington Post that, like thus-far-unsuccessful efforts toward police reform, the treatment of Haitian migrants was an example of how Biden was failing Black Americans. Biden 'said on election night: Black America, you had my back, I’ll have yours,' Sharpton said. 'Well, we’re being stabbed in the back, Mr. President. We need you to stop the stabbing—from Haiti to Harlem.'"

 
From "Democrats’ Free Pass on Immigration Is Over/As he extends Trump-era policies, President Biden discovers that many voters are no longer willing to give him the benefit of the doubt" (The Atlantic).

ADDED: Biden resorted to attacking the agents. BBC reports:

"I take responsibility," Mr Biden told reporters at the White House on Friday. "It was horrible to see, to see people treated like they did, with horses nearly running them over. People being strapped. It's outrageous.... I promise you those people will pay. They will be investigated. There will be consequences."

Will pay... will be consequences... That sounds completely unfair. As the Atlantic article points out, horses have been used in this function for over a century and the agents were doing what they were ordered to do by supervisors who serve under the power of the President. Let the President take responsibility for everything that is going on at the border, not blame others and vow to punish them. 

"As I talk closer to the family, they said that, 'Well, the real reason they stopped was because his tags had expired.' Well, I come to Minnesota to tell you your tags have expired."

"Your tags of racism has expired. Your tags of police brutality has expired. Your tags of white supremacy has expired. Your tags of looking at us different than everybody else, has expired. Your tags have expired. It’s time to renew and get some new tags. A tags of righteousness, tags of fairness, tags of treating everybody the same way. Tags of 'No justice. No peace.'... Those tags done expired... That ain’t going to happen no more.... I hope y’all are alive in Texas, we on the way. Because your tags have expired. We are going to stop by North Carolina where a young man was shot yesterday. We’re going to look in Columbus, Ohio, your tags have expired. We’re going wherever you show up, because your tags have expired.... God made a promise... He said, 'The first shall be last. And the last shall be first'.... God will take care of Daunte, now. Stand up and be what we were born to be. We’re not anyone’s slave. We’re the children of God! We’re the children of God! We’re the children of God."

Said the Reverend Al Sharpton, quoted in the Daunte Wright Funeral Service Transcript (misspellings corrected.)

FROM THE EMAIL: Paul writes:

Long-time reader, rare commenter here. Al Sharpton called for "A tags of righteousness, tags of fairness, tags of treating everybody the same way." Robin DiAngelo, in White Fragility, one of the books that has become part of the canon of the anti-racist religion, wrote "It is not possible to teach someone to treat everyone the same. We can be told, and often often are told, to treat everyone the same, but we cannot successfully be taught to do so because human beings are not objective." I think DiAngelo is deeply, profoundly wrong, and it is my sincere hope that the Al Sharpton view will become (return?) to the predominant view, and I think doing so will require pointing out quotes like hers whenever a black person of the left makes a statement like the one Sharpton made.

"I affirm whatever I think has the best chance of working, of being both inspirational and unsentimental, of reasoning across the categories of false division and beyond the decoy of race."

Said Stanley Crouch, quoted in "Stanley Crouch, Critic Who Saw American Democracy in Jazz, Dies at 74/A prolific author, essayist, columnist and social critic, he challenged conventional thinking on race and avant-garde music" (NYT).

Espousing that pragmatism, he found ready adversaries among fellow Black Americans, whom he criticized as defining themselves in racial terms and as reducing the broader Black experience to one of victimization. He vilified gangsta rap as “‘Birth of a Nation’ with a backbeat,” the Rev. Al Sharpton as a “buffoon,” the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as “insane,” the Nobel laureate Toni Morrison “as American as P.T. Barnum” and Alex Haley, the author of “Roots,” as “opportunistic.”

By contrast, he venerated his intellectual mentors James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray, who, by his lights, saw beyond the conventions of race and ideology while viewing the contributions of Black people as integral to the American experience.

Kirsten Gillibrand — earnestly enacting passion — stumbles over "breastplate" and "sword."

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand started preaching this morning during her remarks at NAN’s King Day Public Policy Forum. #NANMLK19 pic.twitter.com/Zp756P4uwD

— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) January 21, 2019

I put some effort into looking for the text of the MLK speech I think she was quoting, but it is easy to find the Biblical passages that King must have been preaching:

1. Isaiah 59:

The Lord looked and was displeased
that there was no justice.
16 He saw that there was no one,
he was appalled that there was no one to intervene;
so his own arm achieved salvation for him,
and his own righteousness sustained him.
17 He put on righteousness as his breastplate,
and the helmet of salvation on his head;
he put on the garments of vengeance
and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak.
18 According to what they have done,
so will he repay
wrath to his enemies
and retribution to his foes;
he will repay the islands their due.

2. Ephesians 6:

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a minister, and he was — or believed or pretended to believe he was — channeling the word of God. Beautiful for him. But I'm wary of politicians adopting rhetoric like "the breastplate of righteousness," and maybe Kristen Gillibrand was too. Honestly, I don't know how you can stand up in front of everyone and pompously intone the syllable "breast" if you're not sure you can say it crisply.

Why I didn't blog Adam Liptak's "Donald Trump Could Threaten U.S. Rule of Law, Scholars Say."

I see that our longtime commenter Saint Croix put this in last night's Garage Door Café:

Interesting article in the NYT by Adam Liptak. "Donald Trump Could Threaten U.S. Rule of Law, Scholars Say." I read this and I go, no shit. It took you until June to figure this out? I guess only some lawyers are hot-tempered and Jeffersonian. "Be sure to wear a brown shirt so I know who to punch in our street brawls," is what I was saying, like nine months ago. I could have had a baby in the time it took Adam Liptak to figure out that Donald Trump could threaten the rule of law. Anyway, slow and methodical Adam Liptak is now helpfully pointing out to the citizens of the world that Donald Trump could threaten the rule of law.

I notice he only cites Republicans and libertarians in his article. That's one of my favorite rhetorical moves! Find somebody on the other side who agrees with you, and cite the shit out of them. If Al Sharpton ever said, "Obama is an ass," I'd be citing Al Sharpton as a smart thinker. "Even the Reverend Al Sharpton, who has studied the words of Christ, says that Obama is an ass." And all the judges would be going "point," except for the French guy going "touché."

Of course, I'd already seen and read the article. I read The New York Times. Does anyone blog NYT things more than I do? I chose not to blog it. First, every word of the headline annoyed me. That's not to say that I turn away from what annoys me. Quite the contrary.

In fact, an obvious riposte popped into my head immediately: All Presidents threaten the rule of law! That's supposed to cause you to understand the levels of my annoyance at the headline. I don't like the "could," since mere possibility is already built into the word "threaten." Any governmental power can be abused, so there is always a threat. Don't back off and portray the threat as mere potential. The threat is omnipresent.

Let me just quote James Madison, Federalist 51:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

The other level of annoyance is, as my riposte makes clear, that the headline singles out Donald Trump. What about Barack Obama? What about Hillary Clinton? But I settled down and read Liptak's article and Obama's name did come up:

Republican officials have criticized Mr. Obama for what they have called his unconstitutional expansion of executive power. But some legal scholars who share that view say the problem under a President Trump would be worse.

“I don’t think he cares about separation of powers at all,” said Richard Epstein, a fellow at the Hoover Institution who also teaches at New York University and the University of Chicago.

President George W. Bush “often went beyond what he should have done,” Professor Epstein said. “I think Obama’s been much worse on that issue pretty consistently, and his underlings have been even more so. But I think Trump doesn’t even think there’s an issue to worry about. He just simply says whatever I want to do I will do.”

Mr. Trump has boasted that he will use Mr. Obama’s actions as precedent for his own expansive assertions of executive power.

So, I didn't blog it yesterday, but — prodded by Saint Croix — I still like my original gut-reaction snark: All Presidents threaten the rule of law!

"Well look, I know Al Sharpton better than I know you and I dealt with him for years and years and years and you know when he’s not political he says oh I love Donald Trump, I love Donald Trump..."

"... but I will say – in fact, he came up to my office not so long ago to apologize because on his show, which is now off the air which is a fortunate thing, he called me a racist and he came up, he literally came up to my office and he apologized to me, which, by the way I thought was very nice... You know Al is just doing his thing, Bill. He does his thing, we all do our own thing, he was doing his thing and he continues to do it."

Those terrible mountebanks.

I questioned whether I'd ever seen the word "mountebank" in the newspaper, so I searched the NYT archive — all the way back to 1852 — and got 782 hits, beginning with "Really, this Louis NAPOLEON is a very provoking fellow" ("the appearance of the mountebank in the character of a king").

Quite a few of the hits were repetitions of H.L. Mencken's 1926 description of William Jennings Bryan: "a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without sense or dignity . . . deluded by a childish theology, full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, . . . all beauty, all fine and noble things. . . . Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not."

One often encounters "mountebank" in a string of contradictions about a person, for example, Theodore Roosevelt: "He transformed the 20th century; no, he overextended the 19th. He was a progressive trust buster; no, an imperialist demagogue. He was a defender of liberty; no, a power-hungry mountebank — a pioneer environmentalist, a bloodthirsty hunter; a farseeing visionary, an energetic clerk."

I see that future President Woodrow Wilson — upon hearing of the death of President McKinley in 1901 — said: "What will happen to the country with that mountebank as President?"

"Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases."

Said Al Sharpton.

AND: "NYPD cops furious with Bill de Blasio turn their backs on the mayor as he enters hospital where officers died."

"To even investigate something like that is itself a civil rights violation."

Says Instapundit, noting a piece in The Washington Times that says "The U.S. Department of Justice has sent a member of its Community Relations Service team to investigate a Nebraska parade float that criticized President Obama." That piece paraphrases the report in the Omaha World-Herald, which says:

The U.S. Department of Justice has joined the discussions over a controversial float in the Norfolk Independence Day parade. The department sent a member of its Community Relations Service team, which gets involved in discrimination disputes, to a Thursday meeting about the issue. Also at the meeting were the NAACP, the Norfolk mayor and The Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

So, "investigate" replaced "has joined the discussions." And The Washington Times omitted the material explaining the role of the Community Relations Service team: "getting involved in discrimination disputes."

You might still want to deem this federal activity "a civil rights violation." It is intimidating the local Nebraska people who had the nerve to make fun of the President within an unsophisticated folk tradition, the 4th of July parade. (We talked about the depiction of the Obama Presidential Library as an outhouse here.) But it doesn't seem to be an "investigation" in the sense of looking for evidence of a criminal violation.

Should we object to the deployment of the Community Relations Service team when the Justice Department seriously believes there is an outbreak of racial hatred in some little place in America? That's a separate question from whether we object to the participation of the Community Relations Service team in this instance, which doesn't entail any sort of threat to people of a particular race. It's mockery of the President. And there is something seriously wrong with deploying even the mellow-sounding Community Relations Service team to get out the message: If you criticize the President, the forces of the federal government will descend upon your community and make it look as though a shameful racial problem is festering.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Eric Holder went on "ABC This Week" yesterday to do a performance — a subtle, sophisticated performance — in the theater of racial politics:

Who said "Whatever I have or don’t have, you did not help me build it"?

Sounds right-wing — doesn't it? — like a direct affront to Elizabeth "you didn't build that" Warren. (Hey, I like that "You Didn't Build That" has its own Wikipedia page. I have a "you didn't build that" tag.)

But the speaker of the quote in this post title is — did you guess? — Al Sharpton. Al Sharpton was telling off Charles Rangel. Rangel, 84, is running for reelection to the congressional seat he's held since 1970 and has a couple challengers in the primary. Criticizing  Rangel's generation, the Harlem "Gang of Four" and the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus, Sharpton said:

“Part of the problem is that they didn’t groom their replacements.... When you don’t groom your replacements, and you operate like you’re going to live forever, then people in the next generation, that you did not invest in, start taking steps themselves. That’s where I think a Michael Walrond and an Adriano Espaillat come from.”

Walrond and Espaillat are the 2 challengers. Espaillat, like Sharpton himself, is 59. Walrond is 42.

“Whatever I have or don’t have, you did not help me build it,” [Sharpton] said, referring to Mr. Rangel’s colleagues. “So what you can’t do is come to me and say I owe you. I built my reputation, influence, whatever you want to call it, because I fought civil rights issues and people responded. None of them put me in position. It’s just that simple.”

At the Trayvon "rallies" — "Hundreds gathered in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other California cities Saturday morning."

"Civil rights leader and MSNBC host Al Sharpton organized the 'Justice for Trayvon' rallies and vigils outside federal buildings in at least 101 cities: from New York and Los Angeles to Wichita, Kan., and Atlanta...."

In addition to pushing the Justice Department to investigate civil rights charges against Zimmerman, Sharpton told supporters he wants to see a rollback of stand-your-ground self-defense laws now in place in more than 20 states.

"We are trying to change laws so that this never, ever happens again," the Rev. Sharpton said.

Zimmerman shot when he was pinned down and getting his head bashed into concrete. Stand-your-ground has to do with retreating when you can. Even aside from the fact laws can't ensure that bad things never, ever happen again — or else why is there murder? — stand-your-ground made no difference in Zimmerman's situation.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, the reported number is 8,000, with Jesse Jackson as the big speaker, saying: "We must boycott Florida and stop 'stand your ground.'" Boycott Florida?

Rosaline Wilson, 62, said she came to the rally remembering her 14-year old brother who she said was killed by a police officer several decades ago while he was riding home from school. Because of the experience, she said, Wilson was not surprised by the Zimmerman verdict, but thinks there is hope for the future.

"We need solutions; we need something concrete; we need change," she said. 

We need something concrete... Speaking of concrete, does anyone at these rallies mention that Martin bashed Zimmerman's head on the concrete?

ADDED: At the Miami rally, Trayvon Martin's father spoke, and the NYT describes the crowd as "dozens of people."

Should Obama "call for calm after the Zimmerman acquittal"?

Over at Breitbart, Joel B. Pollak is blaming Obama for "amplif[ying] the racial element of the case" by saying "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon" and "fanning the flames of outrage and division--arguably, in an election-year attempt to drive voter turnout." He says:

Following the verdict, with rallies and protests being held across the nation, and the NAACP and Al Sharpton vowing to take matters further, the President might be expected to remind the nation of the importance of the rule of law and respect for the judicial process....

But as of early Sunday morning, with the country on edge, the White House had yet to issue any statement.

1. Is the country really "on edge"? Ironically, saying that is fanning the flames of outrage and division. How about waiting to see some sign of this edginess before expecting the President to advise calm?

2. If, without evidence of edginess, the President were to call for calm, it would imply that people don't know how to handle disappointment and emotional pain, that they descend into irrational, harmful activity. That implication is itself racial stereotyping.

3. I can see that Pollak resisted advising Obama to counsel black people not to riot, which would be the most egregious example of the problem I've cited in point #2, above. He says Obama should issue a reminder about the rule of law and the judicial process, but even that would be to say: I think you people might lack the self-control and intelligence to grasp the most basic fundamentals of the society we all live in. That's patronizing, and it relies on a racial stereotype that shouldn't be fed.

4. So I see no problem in Obama's silence. No statement in the face of no rioting is a whole lot of nothing of the very best kind. Have the perception to give credit for The Good Nothing. Some folks like to call Obama "Zero." Sometimes zero is the best number. Think of all the things we might try to count and feel delighted to find zero.

5. Obama's original statement in March 2012 — "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon" — should be remembered accurately, not for the way that it was used and is being used now by Joel B. Pollak. Obama didn't choose to go out and talk about the case. He was silent until he was asked about it. And what he said was measured and careful. Here's what I said at the time, which ends with "To my ear, his words have a calming, moderating effect, but we don't all hear him the same way, I've noticed time and again." [ADDED: Pollak's piece links to that post of mine for the proposition that the question was planted, but all I said was "he knew [the question] would be asked or at least anticipated it. (At most: his people planted it.)"]

6. If Obama were to speak, whatever he said would be exploited race hucksters and the Obama-haters alike. I think it's just fine for Obama to deprive these shit-stirrers of raw material.

7. Before hitting the publish button, I double checked a couple news sites to see if the predicted riots had broken out. Anyone who's disappointed at the lack of action should be ashamed.

The NYT revisits the Tawana Brawley rape hoax scandal — and Al Sharpton's role.

Here's the video:



Here's the print article, which begins:

The news reports at the time, in the late 1980s, were horrific. Tawana Brawley, a 15-year-old African-American girl from the New York City area, was said to have been abducted and repeatedly raped by six white men. She was found with “KKK” written across her chest, a racial epithet on her stomach and her hair smeared with feces. She was so traumatized, according to reports, that at the hospital she answered yes-or-no questions by blinking her eyes. Making the crime even more vile, if that were possible, she and her lawyers later claimed that two of the rapists were law enforcement officials.

Key line: "A Sharpton associate told the news media at the time that Ms. Brawley’s lawyers, C. Vernon Mason and Alton H. Maddox Jr., and Mr. Sharpton were 'frauds from the beginning.'"

ADDED: At The Daily Beast, Stuart Stevens writes:

If you are an NBC exec and have kids, sit down with them and watch the Times documentary on Tawana Brawley. And when your kids ask why your colleague Al Sharpton is working for NBC, you can explain to them why everything you’ve tried to teach them about honesty, fair play, and decency is wrong and Al Sharpton is right.

Tracking down Tawana Brawley in pursuit of a $429,000 in damages (and interest) for defamation that occurred in 1987.

"In all these years, she’s never told the truth about this hoax or paid me a cent," said Steven Pagones, the former Dutchess County prosecutor who was called a "gang-raping, kidnapping racist."

The case was catapulted onto the national stage by attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason, and the then-little-known Rev. Al Sharpton, who claimed she was raped 33 times.

Celebrities weighed in, with Bill Cosby posting a $25,000 reward for information on the case, Don King promised $100,000 for Brawley’s education and boxer Mike Tyson gave her a $30,000 watch to ease her pain.

Brawley has just been located, working as a nurse, under an alias, in Virginia.

"Get her off the stage right now" — said of Trayvon's mother...

... who's not on script but speaking like a human being with her own moral core.

"One of the things that I still believe in, a person should apologize when they are actually remorseful for what they've done. I believe it was an accident. I believe that it just got out of control and he couldn't turn the clock back. I would ask him, did he know that that was a minor, that that was a teenager, and that he did not have a weapon?"

What would you do if you were monitoring a dark, rainy world and you suddenly encountered someone who had a mind of her own and said what she really thought?

She doesn't look like she belongs here.... get her off the stage right now....

Obama — trying to be "careful" — addresses the Trayvon Martin killing.

I think he handled this extremely well, stressing that we need to diligently investigate the facts and expressing empathy toward the parents of the dead young man. (I'm avoiding writing "boy," but I see many people including Obama are calling this 17-year-old a "boy," presumably out of empathy, but in my mind, there is discordance with the old problem of overusing the term "boy," and I just can't write it.)

Obama didn't bring up the topic himself:

Mr. Obama was asked about his feelings regarding the case during the announcement of a new president for the World Bank in the Rose Garden Friday morning.

The president often appears perturbed when he gets off-topic questions at ceremonial events, but on Friday, he seemed eager to address the case....

So he knew it would be asked or at least anticipated it. (At most: his people planted it.)

... which has quickly developed into an urgent cause in the African American community. He cautioned that his comments would be limited because the Justice Department is investigating. But he talked at length about his personal feelings about the case.

He said:  “When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids” and “You know, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

He did a much better job here than he did in the Henry Louis Gates incident, where he made assumptions and blurted out "it's fair to say... that the Cambridge police acted stupidly." It wasn't fair to say.

I was struck earlier this morning by what Glenn Reynolds wrote (before Obama made his statement):

... I am puzzled by one thing: Dem groups are flogging this because they think it’s good for them, but how can it help Obama — who ran as a post-racial figure who would help America put its racial divisions to bed, a sort of anti-Al Sharpton — to have Al Sharpton leading protests and Louis Farrakhan threatening violence?

Sure, it stirs up the base, or part of it anyway — how Florida Latino voters respond may be different — but doesn’t it just add to the unfavorable contrast between Obama 2008 and Obama in 2012? Or are Sharpton, et al., basically tossing Obama’s interests aside to pursue their own? And is that some sort of indicator itself?

These are all good questions, and they explain why Obama needed to step in and try to take control of the discourse around this volatile topic. To my ear, his words have a calming, moderating effect, but we don't all hear him the same way, I've noticed time and again.

George Lucas is "moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff."

He's not going to make movies anymore? It seems to me he bowed out of movie-making a long time ago. But he's back and saying I'm not going to play anymore because movie executives weren't interested in the movie he made. Don't they know who he is?! Don't they care about about black people?! The movie's about the Tuskegee Airmen, and Lucas is acting as if a historically and racially important subject means that the movie is important and as if executives should bow down when a movie is important when there's no reason to think anything other than that they care about whether a whole lot of people want to see a movie and historical and racial importance is not what brings out the big crowds.

Lucas's whining is too funny. It was his "Star Wars" that ended the great movie period of the early 1970s and got the business focused on giant blockbusters. And now he's supposedly going to "to devote the rest of his life to what cineastes in the 1970s used to call personal films. They’ll be small in scope, esoteric in subject and screened mostly in art houses." Well, fine. I look forward to seeing more ironies pile up on top of each other.

Side question: Is the Tuskegee Airmen movie — "Red Tails" — any good?

All preview screenings are wildly optimistic celebrations of the possible. But this was different. This was a rally. “On Jan. 20,” an 89-year-old Tuskegee ace named Roscoe C. Brown Jr., told the crowd, “every African-American in this country ought to go see ‘Red Tails.’ ” Desirée Rogers, who is now C.E.O. of Johnson Publishing Company, said she was splashing “Red Tails” on the cover of Ebony. And Al Sharpton, sounding like a “Star Wars” fanboy in 1977, later insisted that “it’s probably one of the best movies I’ve ever seen!”

In other words, it's medicinal. It's medicine that "every African-American in this country" is supposed to take. The rich white man made it. Buy it!

He slipped into a kind of Socratic conversation with an imaginary studio head.

“I’m making it for black teenagers.”

“And you’re doing it as a throwback movie? You’re not going to do it as a hip, happening-now, music-video kind of movie?”

“No, that’s not a smart thing to do. There’s not really going to be a lot of swearing in it. There’s probably not going to be a huge amount of blood in it. Nobody’s head’s going to get blown off.”

“And you’re going to be very patriotic — you’re making a black movie that’s patriotic?”

“They have a right to have their history just like anybody else does,” Lucas said. “And they have a right to have it kind of Hollywood-ized and aggrandized and made corny and wonderful just like anybody else does. Even if that’s not the fashion right now.”

They have a right to their history... made into a craptastic Hollywood blockbuster? That is, you appropriated black history and absorbed it into the kind of overblown bullshit you made America love? This is all about George Lucas. It's not about rights for black people. It's about you, and if it's awful, it's because you made an awful movie. And you made the movies awful. And now you're going to flounce off and make art movies....

Please just go away.