Time to get a job, Al Sharpton

Here we go again. Someone somewhere is playing the victim card, and the Rev. Al Sharpton is there to somehow pretend he’s a victim too. The latest country-trotting for Sharpton involves a trip to sunny Arizona to feign utter outrage over the state’s enactment of tough new immigration laws.

I’m not here to argue the merits of the state law. Even the Arizona Legislature just last week had to tweak the measure to ensure it was doing what lawmakers intended without violating constitutional rights. But Al Sharpton? Again? Didn’t I see him at the local Dairy Queen last week? And just before that, on HBO with Bill Maher?

The good reverend is now vowing to bring so-called “freedom walkers” to Arizona this summer in acts of civil disobedience to protest and boycott the state’s actions. "You can amend it, you can bend it, you can do anything you want to it,” but the law will inevitably promote racial profiling, Sharpton was quoted as saying. Bend ... amend ... Wait a minute, was that Jesse Jackson I just heard? Since when did Sharpton take to rhyming? And since when did these guys need to come up with we-shall-overcome lyrics every time they swoop in on an alleged injustice they deem worthy of their advocacy? And who pays for this stuff?

Can you tell I’m a little fed up? So should most Americans be. In my mind, Sharpton’s presence cheapens the arguable claims of Arizona immigrants, or at least their right to challenge them as legitimate. Yet when Al Sharpton arrives on the scene, I feel the country heaves this collective sigh and goes about its other business.

Let’s face it, he’s a political ambulance-chaser. Sharpton may make a killin’ doing it, but I wonder if he really is helping those he purports to speak for.