Jack & Jill Politics

From the pot-calling-the-kettle-a-holder-of-liquids department…

The YouTube description:

This is the transcript of former Mayor, Ed Rendell, who is Governor of Pennsylvania and the states most influential supporter of Presidential hopeful, Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking to a packed audience at Tindley Temple United Methodist Church on April 14, 1997 at rally: “A Solution Too Heal The Racial Divide.” The then mayor was the principal organizer of the rally that brought together diverse religious, political, and civic Philadelphia leaders, with Nation of Islam leader, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan as the keynote speaker.

Some headlines at the time.

NY Times: Philadelphia Mayor Joins Farrakhan to Calm Ethnic Tensions

In a long church rally today, called to promote racial reconciliation after several recent high-profile crimes, Mayor Edward G. Rendell joined Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader, in challenging residents of Philadelphia and the nation to put aside ethnic differences.

Mr. Rendell became one of the few big-city mayors ever to share a podium with Mr. Farrakhan, a circumstance that was all the more unusual because Mr. Rendell is Jewish and Mr. Farrakhan is widely regarded as anti-Semitic. Representatives from the city’s leading Jewish and Roman Catholic organizations were invited to participate in the rally, but all declined.

As the keynote speaker before an enthusiastic audience of more than 3,000 at the Tindley Temple United Methodist Church, h Mr. Farrakhan praised Mayor Rendell, a popular Democrat, for ”his courage and strength to rise above emotion and differences that might be between us or our communities.” Mr. Farrakhan added: ”I believe, Mayor Rendell, that history will applaud your efforts.”

Mr. Rendell, whose speech preceded Mr. Farrakhan’s, commended the Nation of Islam for its emphasis on family values and self-sufficiency.

He told the audience that many people had warned him against ”sharing a platform” with a figure as controversial as Mr. Farrakhan.

But, he said, the incidents that prompted the rally — the attack on a black woman, her son and nephew by a group of white men in February, and the fatal shooting of a white teen-ager by two black men in a robbery in the same neighborhood a month later — have taken a toll on the city.

Philadelphia Jewish Exponent: Furor in City of Brotherly Love over mayor’s bid to Farrakhan

The city’s Jewish community is boiling over Mayor Edward G. Rendell’s inviting Louis Farrakhan to a rally, and then charging critical Jews with not caring about combating bigotry.

The Jewish mayor’s criticism of Jews capped a bizarre week in which the mayor of the fifth largest city in America invited the Nation of Islam leader to speak at an “ecumenical” service called to heal racial and ethnic divisiveness in the city’s Grays Ferry neighborhood.

Jewish and Roman Catholic leaders avoided the Monday event at Tindley Temple United Methodist Church, in response to Farrakhan’s long and well-documented history of anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic rhetoric.

The five-hour-plus event turned into a test of endurance for the audience of more than 3,000, who listened to about two dozen speakers.

While not referring to leaders of the Jewish or Catholic groups by name at the rally, Rendell said, “If everyone cares, they should have been here. They should have been here to talk, and they should have been here to listen.”

Jewish leaders maintain that they do not belong on a stage with someone who as recently as Sunday has claimed that Jews control blacks and funded Hitler.

Just goes to show how deep into the silly season we really are.