Sherrod Debacle
This Wednesday Andrew Breitbart was conned into releasing a portion of a videotape edited to so that Shirley Sherrod's speech to the NAACP appeared to come to the exact opposite conclusion that it in fact did. Her story of overcoming suspicion, distrust, and race-based judgment was twisted to appear to be an endorsement of suspicion, distrust, and race-based judgment. (Breitbart said he posted the video in the exact form he received it from his source.)
Then there's the NAACP, which denounced Sherrod without bothering to look at the complete video in their possession. [Yes, they had the COMPLETE video.]
Then we have the administration that took three days to issue a presidential statement on an attempted bombing of a plane over Detroit, ten days to publicly comment on the oil spill in the Gulf, three months to review the policy in Afghanistan, and fourteen months to respond to a request from governors for U.S. troops on the southern border suddenly managing to move fast as lightning on Sherrod. It's surreal. ABC News's Jake Tapper, a night ago: "Last night, an Obama administration official called Sherrod in her car and demanded she pull over and type a resignation letter in her Blackberry. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement that 'There is zero tolerance for discrimination' at his agency. None of them bothered to learn that the incident in question happened 24 years ago when Sherrod worked for a nonprofit." Van Jones didn't get this treatment.
I am not always the biggest fan of Politico, as you know, but credit former NR guy Jonathan Martin for this keen observation: "President Barack Obama has made a mantra out of insisting he and his White House won't get caught up in 'cable chatter,' with aides proudly insisting they don't let 24-hour news outlets drive decision-making. But this week's forced resignation of a previously obscure Agriculture Department employee is just the latest example of Obama officials reacting to a cable news-driven obsession of the right."
Except that Fox News hadn't even aired the videos of Sherrod yet; as Allahpundit notes, "Unless I've missed something, there was no Fox-driven furor that forced Vilsack's hand — which, ironically, only buttresses Shep's point about how paranoid the White House is about FNC. Merely the prospect of them airing something politically damaging is enough to send the administration into crisis mode, firing people in order to put out the fire before it gets started. No wonder Jim Messina was congratulating people on Tuesday morning."
But don't worry, this already-depressing story has a way of making everyone associated look worse — late Wednesday, Mediaite revealed that Sherrod was burning through her sudden vast reservoir of public sympathy: "She also accused Fox News of racism, telling Strupp that 'they are after a bigger thing, they would love to take us back to . . . where black people were looking down, not looking white folks in the face, not being able to compete for a job out there and not be a whole person.' And — surprise, surprise — she wants to sue, but isn't sure who to attack legally yet: 'I don't know enough to know. I wish I did. I would love to sue. I am going to talk about it.' Sherrod has a lot to be angry about, and given the number of frivolous lawsuits filed in this country, she probably has legitimate ground to stand on against, at the very least, the USDA for using this video to fire her. The most striking thing about this interview is how aggressively Sherrod takes on Fox News, so much so that it eclipses her rebukes of Breitbart, who originally ran the video. As Bret Baier argued yesterday, Fox News didn't cover the story before her resignation (aside from a few comments in their primetime opinion hour). What's more, the day after her resignation, Fox News' opinion hosts covered the story in a light favorable to Sherrod and unfavorable to the NAACP and the White House."
– National Review newsletter
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