In a recent interview on Democracy Now!, ex-Princeton professor and frequent Obama critic Dr. Cornel West lashed out against the president as well as pundits Michael Eric Dyson, Melissa Harris-Perry and Rev. Al Sharpton.
West called Obama a “Rockefeller Republican in blackface” and said Dyson, Harris-Perry and Sharpton were all “for sale.”
West, along with TV personality Tavis Smiley, has been one of President Barack Obama’s loudest and harshest African-American critics. Although West endorsed and campaigned for Obama during the 2008 campaign, he has since complained that the first black president turned his back on impoverished Americans.
In May, West called Obama a “disastrous response to a catastrophe” and he was rumored to be behinds efforts to mount a third party campaign to challenge the president from the left.
West has been criticized himself for the personal nature of many of his attacks on the president. He has questioned Obama’s racial authenticity on numerous occasions.
This is also not the first time West has publicly rebuked former colleagues.
In February West called Harris-Perry a “liar” and said that, ”[s]he’s become the momentary darling of liberals, but I pray for her because she’s in over her head. She’s a fake and a fraud. I was so surprised how treacherous the sister was.”
“Cornel has a right to disagree with the president, but why does he have to go out and disparage everyone who disagrees with him?” said Sharpton at the time.