(not)Sharpton: “Kill Whitie!… or not”

The headline reads:

“Don’t let this guilty plea fool you, Vick is innocent (like OJ)

By Al Sharpton

It caught the attention of MSNBC, who quoted Sharpton as saying (in the blog entry):

If the police caught Brett Favre (a white quarterback for the Green Bay Packers) running a dolphin-fighting unit out of his pool, where dolphins with spears attached to their foreheads fought each other, would they bust him? Of course not,” Sharpton wrote Tuesday on his personal blog.

They would get his autograph, commend him on his tightly spiraled forward passes, then bet on one of his dolphins.

They attributed that to Sharpton’s “personal blog”. The problem is, that isn’t Sharpton’s personal blog. As a matter of fact, those words don’t even belong to Sharpton. It comes from newsgroper.com, which is a site of “Fake Parody Blogs, Political Humor, Celebrity Satire, Funny Commentary” (according to them). If you look on their homepage you will see “blogs” by Snoop Dogg, George W., Brittany Spears, and Kim Jong-Il. Why would all of these people be “blogging” together? That’s a good question and one that MSNBC’s researcher failed to ask. Of course, not many of the commenters on the “Sharpton” blog post seemed to notice that either. Even after the it was pointed out to them, they still kept on slamming “Sharpton”. It’s too bad most people can’t be counted on to check on this stuff before they start screeching.

I can still remember the first time I encountered an Onion article and my reaction. I feel like a big ol’ idiot now, that’s for sure. Trust me when I say I’m blushing just thinking about it. I know better now than to accept anything I read online as the truth without checking out the site first.

For the record, MSNBC did issue this correction (screenshots of the original article are at Gawker):

CORRECTION

An earlier version of this article quoted from a blog entry purportedly by the Rev. Al Sharpton. MSNBC.com has determined that the blog is a hoax. In July, Sharpton signed a letter with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals condemning dogfighting, saying: “Dogfighting is unacceptable. Hurting animals for human pleasure or gain is despicable. Cruelty is just plain wrong.”

You should read the comments to that post to get a real feel of what people are saying to the not-Sharpton. When you know that the article isn’t real, then the reactions following are quite funny.

Of course, who would let a little publicity like this fade into the twilight? Not our not-Sharpton. He’s got a new post up, taking MSNBC to task for calling him a “hoax”.

Excuse me, Mr. Alex “Investigative Reporter” Johnson of MSNBC, but before you go calling people a hoax, maybe you should take a long look in the mirror. (If you don’t see your reflection, it means you are a bigot.)

I can assure you, I’m no hoax. When I said that Brett Favre was probably fighting dolphins against each other to the death with swords crudely attached by duct tape, it obviously wasn’t real; it was a METAPHOR. First of all, the adhesive in the tape wouldn’t hold up in salt water, and also, how many backyard saline pools have you ever swam in?

The first comment is from “Lisa” who says:

Uh… do I need to remind you of your signature on this???? http://blog.peta.org/archives/Michael_Vick_letter.pdf

Which and I quote “We are hopeful that authorities will take the appropriate action against anyone found guilty of an
atrocity as serious as dogfighting, and we will evaluate and monitor the prosecutors and judges
responsible for protecting the innocent and helpless”

Poor, poor Lisa. Do you think it would matter if she knew the truth? (Hint: It didn’t to a lot of people on that other post.)

(H/T Digby)

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