This kind of blood libel leads to blood-letting, but today it led to the firing of a fine civil servant, thanks to a misleadingly edited video propagated, if not actually edited, by evil angry white winger Andrew Breitbart. A known liar, Breitbart's posting led to a Fox News noise storm, and ultimate to the firing of Shirley Sherrod, Agriculture Department's director of rural development in Georgia, by a completely fearful and moronic Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture.
The story is essentially that Sherrod was telling the story about how she realized her own racism in an experience over twenty years ago when called upon in another position to help some white farmers, and learned to correct her own behavior. The edited version leaves out the realization part, making Sherrod look like she's admitting that she's an unrepentant racist.
The whole charade fell apart when the farmer couple, now older but still alive, came forward to defend Sherrod as having actually been responsible for saving their farm. It's one of those movie-type moments that make you love America and want to stand up and cheer...and hiss outright villains like Breitbart, Fox News and, yes, knee-jerk Tom Vilsack.
Vilsack has to stop defending his decision, which he made without allowing a real investigation, similar to the Fox News campaign that led to the resignation of environmental leader Van Jones from the Obama White House. The Obama Administration has to start standing up to Fox News and the rightwing lie machine again, and definitively. Stop letting them set the agenda. Stop looking like wimps for doing as they say. Fight the hell back -- that's what we want from our leaders anyway.
And, per many commentators now, Sherrod sure as hell better be reinstated. Fast.
Maddow has the story and POV, of course:
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1 comment:
Rightwing media promotes fraudulent race-baiting story?!
Dog bites man.
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