Barrett makes the case against Schneiderman; great reading and great thinking:

"While I was away on vacation last week, Al Sharpton, one of the worst tax scofflaws in New York, endorsed Eric Schneiderman for the state's top law enforcement office. No big deal. Any one of the four other Democrats running for attorney general would have, oddly, welcomed the endorsement of the man everyone presumes has great influence with New York blacks even though he got eight percent of the total vote in the state's 2004 presidential primary, barely nosing out Dennis Kucinich, and only a third of the black vote, a universe away from the 85 percent Chicago's Jesse Jackson got in NY a decade before him.Here's what astonished me. Schneiderman could have just said "Thank you, Rev." Instead, obsequious Eric said how great it was to get "the Good Housekeeping seal of approval from the man from the House of Justice," which is what Sharpton calls his National Action Network (NAN) headquarters in Harlem. Schneiderman cited Sharpton's pursuit of justice and said he would "seek to follow that model as AG," adding: "The House of Justice will have an annex in Albany for the first time in the history of the state." It was craven excess, an unconscious declaration of how transactional Schneiderman actually sees the office he seeks. No one really expects a Sharpton cubicle in Schneiderman's office, but the AG-to-be was declaring that an organization that the current officeholder, Andrew Cuomo, investigated just two years ago would have an inside track with Schneiderman because its leader was helping to make him AG. The Federal Election Commission recently levied its largest fine ever on Sharpton's presidential campaign -- $285,000 -- and one reason was that the House of Justice's NAN, and other Sharpton entities, had illegally covered $387,192 of Sharpton's campaign expenses. Sharpton went nuts when federal subpoenas were served on his ex-chief of staff and many others in the NAN posse. Federal prosecutors wound up indicting no one but forced Sharpton to agree to a payout plan on his taxes. NAN is one hell of a strange annex for a top law enforcement officer. Republican Dan Donovan, who salivates to face Schneiderman in the fall, will throw the tape up in a statewide TV ad and probably win his own Good Housekeeping seal in November. The seal, by the way, just celebrated its 100th anniversary, and it guarantees a replacement for any defective product. Donovan may well replace the devastatingly defective alliance for justice that Schneiderman and Sharpton are peddling." Al Sharpton and the 'Times' Endorse Eric Schneiderman: You Gotta Be Kidding blogs.villagevoice.com