Rev. Jackson’s funeral message comes too late to help Smokin’ Joe

Phil Mushnick

EQUAL TIME

There’s nothing like a funeral to bring out the fakers, phonies and frauds.

At Joe Frazier’s funeral in Philadelphia on Monday, America’s Stage Hog, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, delivered one of the eulogies.

Jackson preached the too-little, too-late take on Frazier, the take that right-headed people held 40 years ago. Frazier, Jackson declared, never got the respect and admiration he so richly deserved.

Is that right, Rev. Jackson?

So where were you when it really counted? Where were you when Muhammad Ali mocked Frazier as “a gorilla?” Why didn’t you step to the podium then to censure Ali’s inflammatory and divisive condemnations of Frazier as “The White Man’s Champion?”

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TOO LATE: The Rev. Jesse Jackson had good things to say about Joe Frazier at Frazier’s funeral, but he had nothing to say when Frazier deserved to be defended years ago.

Frazier didn’t get the respect and admiration he earned and deserved? Really? Then where was Jackson when Ali verbally brutalized Frazier as a moron, and as an ugly, sub-human primate?

One other thing about Frazier’s funeral, attended by Ali, or what’s left of him, and Don King. The news/sports media, as always, reported that Ali is afflicted with Parkinson’s Disease.

Wrong.

Parkinson’s Disease, a monstrous act of nature, is what King, Ali’s primary exploiter and financial beneficiary, has long claimed is Ali’s affliction.

But Ali was diagnosed, and in middle age, with Parkinson’s Syndrome, which, while it mimics the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, comes from trauma to the brain, or simply put: getting hit in the head too many times.

People also seem to forget that Ali fought much too long, until one month short of his 40th birthday. Even before his final bout — terribly out of shape, Ali lost a unanimous decision to Trevor Berbick, a year after being beaten senseless by Larry Holmes — Ali had begun to mumble and stare blankly through glazed eyes.

People also forget that Ali sued King for shorting his purse.

King could not have prevented Ali from being afflicted with Parkinson’s Disease, but he might have prevented him from being hit in the head so many more times, years after it was time to quit, that he suffers, and mightily, from Parkinson’s Syndrome.

Yep, nothing like a funeral to bring out the phonies, fakers and frauds. Rev. Jackson on Monday had the congregation join hands as one. Let us prey.

Risque car dealer slams Paterno morals

Among the most outraged and outspoken by the Penn State pedophile scandal is former Penn State and Giants offensive lineman Brad Benson, who quickly and angrily distanced himself from his former coach, Joe Paterno.

On Paterno, Benson was quoted that “someone with a tremendous responsibility failed to fulfill his moral responsibility, and other people failed, as well.”