Posted on 07/22/2010 7:40:30 AM PDT by Kaslin
The fiasco of the forced resignation of Shirley Sherrod has become one of the major stories of the day. It began when BigGovernment.com released a video given to Andrew Breitbart, which seemed to suggest, as Breitbart wrote, video evidence of racism coming from a federal appointee and NAACP award recipient and in another clip from the same event a perfect rationalization for why the Tea Party needs to exist.
What irked Breitbart — correctly — was that the Tea Party was being branded as racist by the NAACP and other liberal media outlets. As we have now learned, the original video handed to Breitbart included only part of the Sherrod speech. It was best explained by Roger Mackey in a New York Times blog:
Ms. Sherrod and her supporters said the edited clip was misleading because the excerpts were taken from a longer story she told about overcoming prejudice and learning, from working with this white farmer, that her job was to help poor people regardless of their race. After the N.A.A.C.P. reviewed a longer tape of the speech (embedded at the top of this post), the group said in a statement posted on its Web site, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger who drew attention to the speech.
The NAACP then backed down, releasing a statement indicating that after reviewing her entire speech and listening to the testimony of white farmers whom Sherrod actually helped, “the fact is Ms. Sherrod did help the white farmers mentioned in her speech. They personally credit her with helping to save their family farm. Moreover, this incident and the lesson it prompted occurred more than 20 years before she went to work for U.S.D.A.
Sherrod, in her full speech, made it clear that what she was trying to convey was a change in her perspective, from seeing things only through the prism of race, when it was a matter of poor people of all colors needing help that was being denied them. She learned when it was revealed to me that its about poor versus those that have and not so much it is about white and black but, it opened my eyes because I took him to one of his own and I put him in his hands and felt, O.K., Ive done my job. The white farmer then had his farm foreclosed.
The white lawyer Sherrod had sent him to did not help stop the foreclosure, but told the farmer to let the farm go. At that point, Sherrod sprung to his defense and went on to help him save his farm. From this experience she learned its really about those who have versus those who dont And it made me realize then that I needed to work to help poor people, those who dont have access the way others have.
After finally hearing her story, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack promised to review the decision asking for her resignation. But there is more. On CNN, Sherrod told the story of how Undersecretary of Agriculture Cheryl Cook called her three times as she was driving to clients in Athens, Georgia, a three and a half hour car drive. “They asked me to resign, and in fact they harassed me as I was driving back to the state office from West Point, Georgia, yesterday,” she said. The last call “asked me to pull to the side of the road and do it [resign],” she said. The undersecretary told her that the White House wanted her to resign, because youre going to be on Glenn Beck tonight.
The irony is that Glenn Beck did not show the video on his program at all that day. On the following days program, Beck came on the air — before the full video of Sherrods entire March speech had been made available by Breitbart and by the NAACP — and told his programs viewers that Sherrod shouldnt have been fired. Why, Beck asked, would they force a resignation based on a 24-year-old incident that might have been taken entirely out of context?
As for Breitbart, we have to ask: Who gave him the incomplete video? Why didnt he ask whether the entire speech was in the clip? Not having done that, it was clearly irresponsible for him to run it. Perhaps it was a setup. At any rate, he should have asked for the complete speech before releasing it, since the subsequent rush to judgment — including the forced resignation of Sherrod — was the result. Breitbart appeared this morning on ABCs Good Morning, America, where he said that:
The video shows racism and when the NAACP is going to charge the Tea Party with racism … I’m going to show you it happens on the other side. This is not about Shirley Sherrod. This is about the smears that have gone against the Tea Party. What this video clearly shows is a standard that the Tea Party has not been held to.
Indeed, Breitbart refused to back down from what he said was simply his intent to show the double standard applied to the Tea Party, and he refused to apologize for showing the incomplete video that cost Sherrod her job. They were clapping racist behavior, he said of the audience who heard her speech. Refusing to apologize, he said the audience showed racism.
The NAAP acknowledged that they were snookered by Fox News and Andrew Breitbart, and apologized for their condemnation of Sherrod and asking for her removal. Breitbart, having now seen the entire speech, should do the same. Sherrod herself blamed the NAACP for throwing her to the wolves, without calling her and even looking at the video, which they had.
As CNNs Campbell Brown told NAACP chief Benjamin Jealous:
I dont believe you were snookered. You allowed yourself to be snookered and youre the ones to blame here because you had the tape in your possession and you could have easily watched it and known the full context of her remarks. You didnt have to take your information solely from these conservative bloggers you now say snookered you.
As for Fox News, the Special Report with Bret Baier did not show the video, and on the panel, Charles Krauthammer said she should not have been dismissed and was owed an apology. Moreover, Shepard Smith, who anchors the 7 oclock news show, called Andrew Breitbarts website one that is widely discredited and posts inaccurate videos edited to the point where the world was deceived. So Fox News as a whole not only came off guilt-free, one of its anchors even blasted Andrew Breitbart. Yet Sherrod herself told Media Matters, the left-wing media-watch site, that Fox News would like to take us [African-Americans] back to where black people were looking down not looking white people in the face, not being able to compete for a job, and not be a whole person. Talking for the network, Baier said, Mrs. Sherrod, that is just not true.
Clearly Sherrod, although she herself had blamed the NAACP for not checking out the small edited video clip, now joined in the same spurious attack on Fox as the civil rights organization previously had done. Yet some on Fox News were guilty of a rush to judgement — particularly Fox News top rated pundit Bill OReilly, who showed the incomplete and misleading video and demanded on the air that Sherrod be fired. So did Sean Hannity, who called it just the latest in a series of racial incidents. Newt Gingrich then told him that firing here for viciously racist attitudes was exactly the right thing to do.
Both of them did not consider that the tape might have been incomplete. But even more guilty is the White House, whose pressure — which of course they deny having been made — resulted in the secretary of Agricultures demand that she be removed from the job. Why would the administration not phone Sherrod, ask for her side of the story, and first ask for the video of the complete speech before acting? Is it that because having branded the Tea Party as racist, they clearly could not afford to look like they were allowing someone who appeared to be a black racist to stay on the job, after she confessed in a speech how she did not help a white farmer?
As we learned tonight, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack blamed himself, said it was all his own fault, and exonerated the White House completely, although he previously noted that the demand she be fired came from the president. Now, he noted that the White House had asked him to apologize, and to quickly offer Mrs. Sherrod her job back.
The New York Times report noted: Ms. Sherrod took to the airwaves on Tuesday, especially CNN, where she said that the N.A.A.C.P. was the reason why this happened. They got into a fight with the Tea Party, and all of this came out as a result of that, she said. Mr. Breitbart reached a similar conclusion, though from a different perspective. Theyre trying to make this about me and Shirley Sherrod. This is about the N.A.A.C.P., he said by phone. He said that the civil rights group had spent an inordinate amount of airtime trying to brand the Tea Party as racist while tolerating racism itself.”
Breitbart is partially correct. The NAAcP has shown its irrelevance many times, trying to act as if the U.S. is still in the segregated 40s and 50s, when it was a necessary and major civil rights organization with a mission to complete. It has a stake in charging racism where it no longer exists. But the organizations head acknowledged he was disturbed about the audience reaction when Sherrod was accounting her first response of not wanting to help a white farmer, and pledged to look into it. Breitbart is also right that the group snookered itself, and it was not his fault. But this is not an excuse for his own failures. He too must apologize for putting out a video without checking whether or not it was complete, and considering what it might do to Sherrod.
It was not simply about the Tea Party. Thus, David Frum is correct when he writes: There will be no apology or statement of regret for distributing a doctored tape to defame and destroy someone. There will be not even a flutter of interest among conservatives in discussing Breitbarts role. By the morning of July 21, the “Fox & Friends” morning show could devote a segment to the Sherrod case without so much as a mention of Breitbarts role. The central fact of the Sherrod story has been edited out of the conservative narrative, just as it was edited out of the tape itself. So this conservative is not writing Breitbart out of the narrative. He too must apologize and admit his error. If he does not, and persists in saying it is just about the Tea Party, he only hurts his own credibility and reputation. Sometimes those with the best of intentions can become their own worst enemy.
Update: Thursday, July 22, 10:04 am, EST
I cannot answer each of my critics directly, but their points are the same: Breitbart does not owe an apology; the NAACP and the Left are exclusively at fault; Shirley Sherrod is a Marxist or perhaps even a communist; etc etc etc. Here is my response:
Last night, even Bill O’Reilly apologized to Sherrod for running the Breitbart released video and for not putting her comments in their entire context. Is O’Reilly now also a tool of the Left? Hardly, and he did the right thing. Breitbart, after hearing the NAACP’s attacks on the Tea Party, rememebered he had asked for the relevant parts of the video (not the entire speech) and then saw it, and released it to prove that the NAACP itself was playing a racist card. That means he responded with his own one-sided and misleading racial card, without trying to see if Sherrod’s entire comment proved his point.
Virtually everyone who has watched the speech, even Charles Krauthammer, notes that her speech was one of inspiration and reconciliation. Despite the horror of having her own father murdered by the Klan and a cross burned on their lawn in 1965, Sherrod calls for all of us working together, and transcending racial appeals. It is, as many have pointed out, an American story—not a racial story preached by the racial hucksters of the Left. True, at times she contradicts herself. In my blog entry, I included her own misguided statements about Fox News to Media Matters, and said she was wrong and losing her own high ground. But she has not repeated this on the numerous other programs she has been on.
The simple reason Andrew Breitbart owes an apology is this: He alone released the edited video- that did not include the rest of Sherrod’s story, in which she shows how her original reaction was wrong and how she moved on, and then helped the white farmer as best as she could- thereby indeed saving him from foreclosure and saving his farm. He and his wife have been Sherrod’s friends since then. Breitbart now says over and over “They made it about her,” as he did on a TV interview. No, HE made it about her, by releasing the misleading video. If he refuses to own up to his mistake, he has then squandered any credibility he may have had. So, I repeat: Andrew, apologize to her and to all of us.
Some people see more clearly than others.
The first post that I ever read by OldDeckHand had me wondering if they were a troll. Post links to pertinent info and he leaves.
All of them. Breitbart is just as much in the wrong as DoA, the NAACP, and the WH -- all of them jumped to a wrong conclusion.
But somehow you're determined to give Breitbart a pass. You called it a "straw man" when I suggested that Breitbart's conservatism merited a pass from you. But your on-going defense of a rancid bit of character assassination by Breitbart tells me that it's not really a strawman at all.
If you the purpose of a political discussion forum is to get along with people, maybe you should stick to your Brownie troupe or Tupperware parties.
"wouldnt you be happier at a more politically correct forum?"
Sure, whatever you say. Me, Ann Coulter, National Review Online and Powerlineblog all think that Brietbart got used, and I'm the politically correct one. Put down the crack-pipe and get yourself some help.
The first post I read of yours, I wondered if you were functionally illiterate. You've posted nothing since to make me think any different. Just saying.
I can't believe the conservatives and Freepers that are buying this stinky load from the MSM. This woman is still a racist. And a shakedown artist. I just shake my head.
At least I’m a conservative that isn’t led by the MSM. I form my own opinion after I read all the evidence. You haven’t the courage to comment on her shakedown of $13 mil from the USDA or her racist remarks that Kristinn highlighted. You insult because you can’t defend your position.
I have found OldDeckHand's posts to be a rather refreshing infusion of honest and intelligent discussion.
As opposed to a lot of the emotional hysteria that attempts to pass itself off as "conservativism" on threads like this one.
Conservatism is grounded in intellectual honesty and rational argument. I've seen neither from you, ever.
"You insult because you cant defend your position."
No, I insulted you because you called me a "troll". I'm sorry you're too obtuse to pick up on that.
People, this is NOT about “winning”...it’s about saving our country from truly evil people.
If some of you feel the need to line up in pretty rows and honorably trade fire with a dishonorable enemy, by all means do so.
As for some of us, we will engage in “ “indian-fighting” (no apologies) when forced to.
This video PROVES BEYOND ALL DOUBT, the existence of INSTITUTIONALIZED BLACK RACISM and racism in the NAACP rank and file a WEEK after the same group sets out to destroy the TeaParty with lies and false allegations.
No setup, no need to apologize and no need to attack fellow Conservatives as the Media is taking care of that...
After giving her the benefit of the doubt - for revisiting the Spooner’s plight - it is clear the recounting of her *not black vs. white, but poor vs. rich* was just more self righteousness. Shirley will always do what is good for Shirley. So let’s be realistic. She may be a repentant sinner, she is certainly not a saint.
Andrew Breitbart is not a Federal employee!!!!!
Yeah, Jennifer Burke, a black Tea Partier, has it all wrong. And SO emotional! /s
More insults because you can't debate any of the links that I posted. Who is being intellectually dishonest? You.
No, I insulted you because you called me a "troll". I'm sorry you're too obtuse to pick up on that.
It's not the first time you have been called a troll. And you insult when you can't debate. I have given you at least 4 links to info all of which you have ignored because it doesn't fit your scenario.
I don’t understand, why do you think Breitbart needs to apologize to her?
Never smoked crack in my 53 years nor do I know anyone who does...is that like your peer group or something like that?
I did smoke a lot of weed though from 71-83...and visited Uncle Sidney a bit I must confess.
My only lifelong addiction to this day has always been and remains...PUNANI!..there is nothing else comes close in my book.
Better to be silent and let the world think you racist than open your mouth and prove them right.
She still refers to Blacks as “my people” and whites as “them”. She is still a racist.
Victor Davis Hanson wrote this insightful article about the "New Racial Mess."
I think you should get more exercised about the NAACP's racist charges and political agenda, the imposition of racial quotas in Obamacare, Financial Reform, etc.,and the JournoList scandal that prevented stories from being released about Obama's relationship to Rev Wright.
Andrew Breitbart has exposed the Left multiple times including Acorn and the NAACP. He deserves praise not comdemnation.
And in response Breitbart decided to engage in a bit of journalistic dishonesty that turned out to have profound consequences. And he got caught.
You keep trying to excuse him....
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