Gretta Van Susteren is reporting that Barack Obama’s campaign is dictating the media appearances for Al Sharpton:

I debated whether to tell you this or not…but I did promise behind the scenes information here on GretaWire….so here it is…yesterday at 9:00am I personally booked Reverend Sharpton to appear ON THE RECORD at 10pm eastern to discuss Don Imus. At 8:12pm, less than 2 hours before we were to begin our 10pm news show, I received a call in my office from Reverend Sharpton…he said that Senator Obama’s campaign had called and asked him to appear on CNN at the same time he was due to appear on ON THE RECORD and thus could not make our show at the top. I told him that our first segment was the one he had been booked for almost 12 hours earlier and which we had discussed …he said Senator Obama’s campaign called and wanted him on CNN and that he was sorry. So…here is my question: is Senator Obama’s campaign booking CNN now?

What is it with Obama and controversial Reverends? Anyway, in trying to find out what exactly was said on Sharpton’s CNN appearance, it seems that quite a few sites are saying Sharpton somehow “outed” Anderson Cooper on the broadcast in question.

And as Sharpton was acting as an agent of Senator Obama at the time of this nastiness, shouldn’t the Obama campaign bear some of the responsibility for Sharpton’s behavior?