As Hillary Clinton told it earlier, she was LBJ to Obama's MLK. But it looks like Al Sharpton's got his own uses for the analogy. Well into the NYT's strange front-page story on Obama and race (news flash: it's played a role in his campaign!!), we come to this bit:

Mr. Obama was the first presidential candidate to respond to Mr. Sharpton’s call to denounce what was going on in Jena, saying the cases against the students were not a matter of black versus white, but a matter of right versus wrong. He then called Mr. Sharpton to explain that he had important votes in the Senate, and that he would not attend the march because he did not want to politicize the issue.

“We agreed on inside-outside roles,” Mr. Sharpton said, referring to himself and Mr. Obama, echoing a famous conversation between President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “I would continue my work agitating the system from the outside, and he would do what he could to make changes from the inside.”

I'm in awe of Sharpton. After conspicuously refusing to endorse Obama, he's now casting himself not only as Obama's partner in justice, but as MLK to Obama's LBJ. The man certainly has a knack for staying relevant.

--Jason Zengerle