Mark Ridley-Thomas' Disappearing Endorsement
We Stand Corrected.I had a nice conversation this evening with Bernard Parks, Jr., Chief of Staff for Councilman Bernard Parks, Sr.
We discussed the story which ran on our blog and others which may have led some to believe that the Councilman - who is running for the LA County Board of Supervisors against former Councilman and current State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas - was tied to the Reverend Eric Lee who what some feel made anti-semitic remarks at a recent benefit saluting Israeli-American philanthropist Daphna Ziman.
We had reported that Parks was present at the event where Lee made his controversial speech and that Parks had plans to discuss with the Reverend his remarks.
It turns out our initial information was incorrect. According to Parks, Jr. the Councilman had left the event well before Lee made the comments and had not made any plans to meet with Lee. Parks Jr. confirmed his father did meet with Ziman later.
Since Ridley-Thomas once held a high position with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as Lee does know, I wanted to find out if Lee had endorsed Ridley-Thomas. My first stop was Ridley-Thomas' (Christ, couldn't they have settled on one name? Well it's not bad as Villar-a-you know what) website. In his list of religious leader endorsements; no Reverend Eric Lee. But you can always turn to the blogger's friend; Google Cache. Bingo! An older version of Ridley-Thomas' site has Lee's endorsement.
So the question is when did Ridley-Thomas remove the endorsement and why did he do it?
Labels: bernard parks, Mark Ridley Thomas, reverend eric lee
Posted by Mayor Sam @ 4/14/2008 09:07:00 PM
11 Comments:
Christ almighty MS get a life!
Who cares about who endorsed who 20 years ago, go back that far on anyone and you'll find some skeletons the closet.
SHeesh President Bush's grandfather's made money and endorsed Hitler!
That doesn't make President Bush a Nazi does it?
Well does it?
He's not talking about MRT's or Bernie's grandpa.
MRT has some 'splainin' to do.....
Mayor Sam,
Most often, you are the most savvy contributor to this blog.
But with this story, you show a little bit of naivete. There is no there there.
Of course, Ridley-Thomas removed Lee's name, after Lee made his true character known!
That is the right thing to do.
Had he NOT removed his name from his list, it would be an endorsement of Lee.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't, if you have your way.
This is like returning contributions from those tagged by scandal. It's the right thing to do.
This blog was best when it left investigative reporting to others, and simply provided an outlet for those with real inside information to dish it.
Like, "who leads in CD 14? Discuss."
There are a lot of other great topics now. The AD 40 race comes to mind.
But there is no story here.
Slow blog day!
I love Google cache
10:50 - you are right, it was the right thing to do.
But rather than quietly erasing it, Ridley-Thomas should have come out against Lee's remarks.
I don't think Parks approves of them. Does Ridley-Thomas?
Someone asked about the story of late former Councilman Ernani Benardi calling Ridley-Thomas "Curly" during a Council meeting in the 90s.
I remember this. Ridley-Thomas was quite upset because he had assumed it was some kind of racist remark.
Turns out that Benardi, a kind of goofy old Councilman but the last of the good guys, called every one decades younger than him "Curly" regardless of race, gender, profession, etc.
First you get introduced to Garshady. Now you're buds with Bitter Bernie, Jr.
So would Villaraigosa have to invite you for a beer to get you to step down off Jamiel's law.
You're a pussy!
Speaking of beer, what's with the idiot wanting to increase taxes on it by 250%? First we ban or charge a lot for a plastic bag, because per the Daily News article on it couple days ago, it's the "poorest of our neighborhoods," says the idiot sponsor, who throw them away in the streets and they end up in the ocean.
The same idiot who was at the Lee event but "didn't pay attention," and said anyway, "those of us who talk a lot for a living, say things we regret sometimes." Yeah...
Why would the honoree Ziman make up such a thing if it weren't true? Sounds like Lee got away with saying this stuff so often, it just came out and now he's lying about it. Just plain lying. The rest of the "I didn't listen" pussies don't want to get their names in the news.uxmxjkex
There is no Jamiel's Law. Wake up and smell the truth. You acted like assholes and Jamiel's Law went down with your lies and racist diatribes.
That's a shame for the Shaws but Al Sharpton should have guided them. When you lay down with dogs you wake up with fleas.
Next time you'll all hopefully learn from this. Of course, one of the bloggers here is so sick with hatred there is nothing that she can learn.
I think it's perfectly understandable why Mark Ridley-Thomas would remove him. He didn't want that kind of man in the news on his website as an endorsement. Why is that so hard to believe?
Should he have called an embarrassing press conference to state that he was removing him? Why? It's not like he was Obama's PREACHER saying those things on a weekly basis to Obama, plus marrying him, baptizing his kids, etc.
SCLC is a huge organization with lots of pastors. He removed one whose views didn't match his. Where's the story? I'm sure if asked, he would tell the truth at least.
Parks would take the money and look you in the eye and say, "So what, it doesn't mean I share his views." But he'd keep the endorsement.
Mark isn't like that. He's a man of his word. He doesn't like to embarrass people and that is all that would accomplish.
I don't see the story here, except that you may have misspoke about Parks. Big deal that is.
Most of the bloggers here are too young to remember this, but as a Jew I certainly remember the controversy surrounding another head of the SCLC a little over 20 years ago.
In 1985, SCLC Executive Director Mark Ridley-Thomas pressured Mayor Tom Bradley to not condemn Louis Farrakhan before he spoke at an event in Los Angeles.
At the time Farrakhan had been making statements in which he referred to the “wickedness” of Jews. Ridley-Thomas even went so far as to call LA Jewish leaders arrogant for asking Mayor Bradley to denounce Farakhan.
Ridley-Thomas: "There is a resistance to the somewhat arrogant posture on the part of some Jewish leaders in telling the black community how it ought to handle its business." (LA Times, September 13, 2005)
Look it up.
Rev. Lee is no different today than Mark Ridley-Thomas and that's just one reason why Lee is one of his biggest and bigoted supporters.
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