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Al Sharpton, who passes as a reputable journalist over at MSNBC, was on the network Tuesday night talking about "undermined credibility." On that he should be considered an expert witness.

Flat-out lies aren't going to improve any situation, but then Sharpton thrives on injury not healing. He can't be dismissed as an easy or ancillary target, either, when MSNBC pays him and gives him a platform, when he isinvited to the White House by the president of the United States, and when he is permitted such a large role by the family of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

Sharpton was a minor league provocateur when he hit it big with Tawana Brawley in 1987. Brawley was a 15-year-old black woman living outside of New York City who, looking to dodge trouble at home after sneaking out, scrawled racist signs on herself, crawled into a bag and, when discovered, claimed she had been gang raped by white men.

The whole story was obviously a hoax. There are racists in the Northeast as surely as there are racists in the Deep South, but what Brawley claimed was off the charts; it bore no resemblance to the reality of life in that place and time.

Her story should have been denounced at once. Instead, Sharpton and two black attorneys became spokesmen for Brawley. They fanned her story, leveling outrageous accusations against people. Too afraid to be labeled racists, most white people shook their heads; for a long time, the liberal press was complicit with Sharpton's charade.

The entire toxic situation, in other words, was allowed to fester. Rather than cut it short immediately and state forcefully it is not true that white men routinely gang rape black teenage girls, write on them with feces and toss them shocked and dazed into bags, authorities treated Sharpton and his retinue seriously.

A false narrative thus setback race relations. The mood was very tense - I lived in the area at the time - until finally The New York Times summoned the courage to do what it should have done at the beginning - namely, expose Sharpton's and Brawley's claims as complete fabrications.

Sharpton would go on tobloody his hands in a Harlem fire that claimed 8 lives. Most recently, The Times published a front-page story suggesting he is a tax cheat.

He's done real damage, however. The fact he has been allowed to prosper while trafficking in lies has created the environment in which lies are apparently ok if they allegedly illuminate some larger truth.

This is what has happened with Michael Brown. Dorian Johnson, Brown's companion on that regrettable, fateful day fabricated a story about the encounter with police officer Darren Wilson. Brown was supposedly cooperative, his hands in the air in a universal symbol of surrender.

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Al Sharpton's lies help no person, improve no situation: James Varney