Cosby and Jackson - a Study in Priorities

An event was held at the New Orleans Convention Center for 2,000 local residents, and two of the speakers were Bill Cosby and Jesse Jackson. Look at the difference in the two messages:

Humorist Bill Cosby lectured black residents of New Orleans over the weekend, saying their community was "wounded" by crime even before Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city and killed their neighbors.

"It's painful, but we can't cleanse ourselves unless we look at the wound," Cosby told the rally of about 2,000 people at the city's convention center, where thousands of Katrina evacuees had gathered seven months earlier.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you had the highest murder rate, unto each other. You were dealing drugs to each other. You were impregnating our 13-, 12-, 11-year-old children," he said, in quotes picked up by Reuters.

"What kind of a village is that?"

And how did Jesse Jackson respond?

Meanwhile, Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who were also on hand for the rally, seemed to contradict Cosby's message of self reliance.

Jackson focused instead on what he said were federal and state efforts to "disenfranchise" New Orleans voters for the upcoming Democratic primary.

Imagine that. Cosby tells the people that they're responsible for many of their own problems, while Jackson and Sharpton try to blame everything on the Federal government.

By the way, the current dispersion of New Orleanians may spell the end of Mayor Ray Nagin's time as mayor. He's expected to lose the primary, partly because so many of his former supporters now live elsewhere and won't be voting. You'd think this would be good for New Orleans, except that the likely winner is another member of the Landrieu family, which brought us such stars as Sen. Mary Landrieu.