The African-American sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisc., sharply criticized President Barack Obama and outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder on
Newsmax TV Thursday, saying both have failed to speak and act impartially in two polarizing cases in which black men died in confrontations with white police officers.
Sheriff David Clarke told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner that Obama and Holder have engaged in race-baiting rhetoric and tactics more suited to the "blowhard" Rev. Al Sharpton — a trusted Obama adviser — than to the commander-in-chief and the nation's top law enforcement officer.
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Clarke spoke to Berliner one day after a
New York grand jury declined to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold-related death of Staten Island resident Eric Garner.
It was the second intensely watched grand jury in recent days to clear a white police officer in the death of a black man, after violent protests shook Ferguson, Missouri, in reaction to the Michael Brown case and laid bare old wounds in the uneasy relationship between black Americans and police departments.
Clarke was especially severe in his appraisal of Holder, saying that as attorney general, "he should be impartial and he should measure his words and choose his words carefully, because when he speaks, America listens."
"That means you have to speak to a diverse audience," said Clarke, "and it seems to me, with some of the divisive language that he used on the days following the Ferguson, Missouri, tragedy of Officer Darren Wilson having to use deadly force against Michael Brown, he went up there and basically indicted the profession of law enforcement as being engaged in racial profiling, being racist and having some nefarious intent when they go out on the street to risk their lives and serve their communities."
Clarke said that Holder "gave several examples of where he himself was racially profiled — or so he said.
"Because he has not produced one shred of evidence that law enforcement agencies engage in systematic, institutional or even policy-driven racist practices," said Clarke. "I reject that notion out of hand."
He said Holder and Obama both have engaged in "political posturing" in both the Brown and Garner cases in order to curry favor with their supporters.
"The president of the United States — with all due respect to the office and the person who holds that office — he has consistently engaged in a political strategy of divide and conquer," said Clarke, citing, "This fictitious war on women, pinning whites against blacks by fanning the flames of racial discord, this class warfare, the 99 percent versus the 1 percent and on and on and on."
Of Holder, he said, "He's just trying to improve his black bona-fides" and prove "that he's down with the struggle.
"So he goes out there and he panders," said Clarke.
Clarke said that it's one thing for figures like Sharpton, who has led demonstrations this year in both Ferguson and New York, to use incendiary rhetoric.
"They can do that," he said, "but not the president of the United States."
He added, "I would question the judgment of anyone who would use Sharpton as an adviser.
"He doesn't speak for black people," Clarke said of Sharpton. "The media gives … this perception that he does, but he doesn't speak for me and he doesn't speak for black people in general."
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