AOL EXCLUSIVE: Al Sharpton Interview - Asks Tavis Smiley 'What is Your Agenda?'

Rev. Al Sharpton and Tavis Smiley went at it today over Smiley's assertion that Sharpton and other black leaders have abandoned the idea of a black agenda since dealing with President Barack Obama's administration. The verbal slapdown happened on Al Sharpton's radio show. Frankly, I haven't heard this much bickering and public recrimination since Smiley rejected Michelle Obama as a guest on his State of the Black Union a couple years ago.

And Sharpton took strong issue with my post yesterday. He reached out to clarify his point of view, and we conducted our phone interview as Sharpton was on his way to meet with Larry Summers to express how inadequate he believes this watered-down jobs bill to be. "Disgraceful" was the word used.

Here's what Sharpton had to say about the need for a black agenda and Tavis Smiley:
"We are not in a conflict with Tavis. We answered Tavis' criticism of us. Tavis got on Tom Joyner yesterday, with no warning, and said that he wanted to have this showdown with black leaders on the black agenda and that we had said that we don't need a black agenda.

Nobody ever said that. We had a meeting with the president and did not meet on a race bill or a black bill, but obviously we met about a black agenda. The whole meeting was about black unemployment. But we weren't gonna come out there and feed the Glenn Becks of the world saying, "Oh we had four black guys in the room, and we all plotted on white folk." That would have been ignorant.

So what we said was we want to see all Americans included in this bill, including us, which is what Tavis and Jesse Jackson said in the '90s when they met with Clinton. I don't know what they expected us to come out of there and say.

Instead [Tavis] called a showdown meeting that I didn't know even about."

I then asked Sharpton about a specific quote following the jobs meeting:

"We do not seek any special kind of edict or special kind of thing from the president because he's African American," Sharpton said. But we do "expect to be included in the process" as Congress debates a new jobs bill. Source

I offered that special interest groups of constituents often seek preferential consideration from the presidents they help elect. Sharpton answered this way:

"No. Think about what you just said. I said we are not going to ask him for jobs, because he's black. We were there about black employment. What I was saying is that we would have been here whatever president it was.

The press was saying to us, 'Are you here because he's a black president and feel you all should be given this audience because he's black?' I said, 'No, we're not here, because he's black, we're her because there's a disproportionate amount of unemployment among blacks. We were here for Clinton [and] we were on Bush.'

Black Voices: But I feel like we are walking around on eggshells, like God forbid we say something's "good for black people." I think, like Tea Partiers, we deserve to advocate, too.

"What I'm saying to you, Carmen, is that if we did not take that posture there wouldn't have been a meeting. We asked for the meeting. We said, 'Wait a minute! Why are y'all meeting with everybody except black leaders?' If y'all meeting with labor leaders, business leaders [then] you have to meet with black leaders.

If the president did not want to send a signal that he was going to meet and deal with the issues, you know and I know, you worked in the media a long time, he could have made it at nine o' clock in the residence and nobody would know there was a meeting.

He [President Obama] did it at high noon, in the Oval Office, with the press outside. That says, 'They've got a legitimate point, I see the issue.' Now he may not come out and say everything we want him to say, but he raises the issue by agreeing to the meeting."

Al Sharpton directly questions Smiley's motives:

"The question I have for Tavis and them is if we got [the president] to the table, if we're dealing with this, then what are you attacking us for when we're the only ones who've got him reviewing black issues?"

Black Voices: I did not know that the meeting had been requested by the attendees.

"We requested the meeting. Me, Mark Morial, Ben Jealous and Dorothy Height wrote the president and said that we're concerned about record unemployment among blacks. And we want a meeting with you in the White House. [President Obama] responded and gave [us] the meeting.

As you know, this is the first race-based meeting, since the "Beer Summit," since he's been president. Do we need to go forward? Does there need to be follow-up? Yes. "

AND it heats up:

"But the real reason that a lot of people took the opposite view from Tavis is one: Tavis, we ain't heard nothing from you. You're always critical of the president and then why would you attack the only black leaders that got him to address a black issue at all? What is your agenda? What is that all about?

What I said to Tavis on my show is maybe yes the president needs to be held accountable, but maybe you shouldn't be holding that accountability since you have been so vitriolic against the president. It just fuels the anti-Obama agenda. Maybe you should be on the panel and let somebody else get the voices. [Tavis responded] 'Oh, no, no, no.'

At the end of the day, you gotta ask yourself, Carmen, 'What are you [Tavis] mad about black leaders asking the president to [take the] lead about black unemployment?' We're trying to get the dialogue started. And even if we disagree, we should not be disingenuous. And I felt that for Tavis to call that kind of meeting, and distort our view, I felt that was disingenuous.

YOUR THOUGHTS?