# Who looks worse? Breitbart or Obama WH? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 21, 2010, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448 "2010-07-21T11:20:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/1 "2010-07-21T11:20:27Z")
So back in March at an NAACP function, USDA official Shirley Sherrod tells of learning her lesson 24 years ago while helping a white farmer keep his farm & being tempted to not give her best effort. That gets edited & shown by Righty blogger Andrew Brietbart, she gets condemned by the NAACP & fired w/the OK from the Obama White House. Now the whole story comes out & it seems she is exonerated & did a fine job by that farmer. So while I’ll be the first one to say Breitbart’s an asshat in this matter & should be investigated, doesn’t this make her USDA supervisors & whoever in the White House greenlit her firing look totally cowardly? [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?entry\_id=68350](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?entry_id=68350) [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38321920/ns/us\_news-life/](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38321920/ns/us_news-life/) even the ‘demonic’ Glenn Beck (mwahhahhah!) weighs in … FOR HER!!! [Fox News - Breaking News Updates | Latest News Headlines | Photos & News Videos](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,597263,00.html) ---
**Author:** ![sleeping](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@sleeping](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeping)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/2 "2010-07-21T12:13:57Z")
Classic character assassination by the right. The White House was obviously wrong, but if they had wavered a day more Glenn Beck would be saying the exact opposite. The constant attacks on the WH and NAACP have made them paranoid. Hopefully, they will recognize this for the “teachable moment” that it is. ---
**Author:** ![Burton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Burton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burton)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/3 "2010-07-21T12:58:33Z")
I can’t excuse the Obama administration for this. I find their lack of balls so disheartening I’m done. I sent an email to the White House first thing this morning saying so. There’s no way they can fix this in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![VanLandry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/eb9ed0/32.png) [@VanLandry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VanLandry)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/4 "2010-07-21T13:06:55Z")
Withdrawn for not keeping with the subject of the OP ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/5 "2010-07-21T13:17:48Z")
She got ACORNed. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/6 "2010-07-21T13:23:21Z")
Glen Beck is just glomming on to Sherrod’s side of the story so he can take a big shit on the NAACP for jumping to conclusions. It was his network that whipped this story into a froth at the behest of Andrew ‘George Soros is Evil, But I’m Not’ Breitbart. Fox is still shitting all over Sherrod. This morning on Fox ‘n’ Friends, they had on the USDA director under Bush (can’t remember his name) going on about … “Obama surrounds himself with questionable people, outside the mainstream, like Reverend Wright and William Ayers and now Shirley Sherrod.” Or words to that effect. Fox ‘News’, including Beck, is fucking shameless. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/7 "2010-07-21T13:37:57Z")
It’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out. My initial impression, based not on Fox or Breitbart but on NBC’s national broadcast last night, was that she was the wronged victim of a massive overreaction by her supervisors after being pressured by the WH. She said she learned of her firing on her cell phone when they asked her to pull over to the side of the road (she was driving) and they then fired her. Maybe she should have been fired for answering her cell phone while driving (nr) but certainly not for edited comments, taken out of context and part of a reasonable progression of a story point condemming racist attitudes. On the other hand though, there is one thing that bothers me and I’d really like to see this addressed somewhere if it hasn’t been already. This quote from the second link in the OP… _“I am just not sure how I would be treated there,” she said, adding that she couldn’t get coworkers to listen to her side of the story about a speech she made in March, edited clips of which were recently shown on a conservative website._ Sherrod’s coworks should be among those that know her best, yet they refuse to stand up for her? Why not? Was it because of the judgement already handed down from such a lofty perch or was this yet another example of an attitude they’d seen before? I really hope at some point this is addressed and made public. Now, who the frick is Breitbart? I’ve never even heard of him yet the WH considers his veracity so immune to circumspection they do no verification of their own? In what manner did he alter the video? At first glance, WH got played… and that ain’t good. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/8 "2010-07-21T13:50:05Z")
The hatred for FOX, Breitbart (who first aired the ACORN videos) & Beck notwithstanding, the fact remains that the WH & the NAACP & in the ACORN matter, the Democratic Congress all look like easily-played chumps if they start whining “We were manipulated by bad naughty Right-wingers!” Bill Clinton would have drank all their milkshakes, banged their wives, & made them like it. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/9 "2010-07-21T13:50:23Z")
The question is “who looks worse: a liar or someone who believes him?” The answer is usually the liar because he’s the one who acted with malice. I hadn’t followed this story before today but it does sound like Obama’s people overreacted because they were afraid of this turning into a huge issue. (It goes without saying that there’s already a group of white people out there who believe they are being discriminated against, or who are terrified of the possiblity.) If so, that was pretty stupid- they let themselves be manipulated. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/10 "2010-07-21T14:02:47Z")
I’m not letting Breitbart and Fox slide on this, but the Administration (or, if you want to be charitable to Obama, AgSec Vilsack) believed the claims of a man who is already known for promulgating deceptively edited tapes to attack liberal people and organizations (Breitbart was the major cheerleader and exhibitor of the edited ACORN tapes, as well), and is guilty of panicking at the thought of a little lying worm like Glenn Beck going on the air with that edited tape and forcing the resignation of a long-time civil servant with NO investigation at all. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/11 "2010-07-21T14:07:00Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > The question is “who looks worse: a liar or someone who believes him?” To start out with the facts, can someone actually cite and quote the lie? I don’t mean a link to some website or video that I have to watch. Let’s get the lie right out here in this thread so we can judge it for what it is. ---
**Author:** ![kingbighair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/13edae/32.png) [@kingbighair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingbighair)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/12 "2010-07-21T14:26:35Z")
It is in the second link - > [@](#): > > In the clip posted on [BigGovernment.com](http://BigGovernment.com), Sherrod described the first time a white farmer came to her for help. It was 1986, and she worked for a nonprofit rural farm aid group. She said the farmer came in acting “superior” to her and she debated how much help to give him. > > “I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with helping a white person save their land,” Sherrod said. > > Initially, she said, “I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do” and only gave him enough help to keep his case progressing. But eventually, she said, his situation “opened my eyes” that whites were struggling just like blacks, and helping farmers wasn’t so much about race but was “about the poor versus those who have.” > > The full video of Sherrod’s speech showed that while she took some shots at conservatives and spoke of continued racial inequities, she focused on encouraging blacks, particularly the younger generation, to do more to help themselves. > > “We have to overcome the divisions that we have,” she told the audience. “Change has to start with us. … Our young people, I’m not picking on you, but y’all gotta step up to the plate. … You are capable of being those doctors and lawyers.” ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/13 "2010-07-21T14:27:27Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > Fox ‘News’, including Beck, is fucking shameless. I understand your comment as it relates to Fox News. But why Beck? It seems to me he took the correct position (i.e., wait and see what the evidence is) from the beginning. What did he do wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/14 "2010-07-21T14:34:25Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > I’m not letting Breitbart and Fox slide on this, but the Administration (or, if you want to be charitable to Obama, AgSec Vilsack) believed the claims of a man who is already known for promulgating deceptively edited tapes to attack liberal people and organizations (Breitbart was the major cheerleader and exhibitor of the edited ACORN tapes, as well), and is guilty of panicking at the thought of a little lying worm like Glenn Beck going on the air with that edited tape and forcing the resignation of a long-time civil servant with NO investigation at all. Except that Glen Beck actually went on the air and said: > [@Beck](#): > > Those are obviously racist comments that deserved to be condemned. But Sherrod was forced to resign before even being allowed to give her side of the story which, allegedly, is that she was just telling a story of an event that took place 24 years ago and, in fact, she is now friends with that farmer and she was only telling the story to show that she’s learned her lesson that it’s not about race, it’s about who has and who has not. > > Lending credibility to her side of the story, let me play her comments right after stating that she turned the white farmer over to “one of his own kind”: > > (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) > > SHERROD: That’s when it was revealed to me that it’s about the poor versus those who have, not so much about white — it is about white and black, it’s not, you know — it opened my eyes. Because I took him to one of his own. > > (END VIDEO CLIP) > > Now, I’m inclined to believe her, based on what she said right there. > . > . > . > The White House is watching today because they think I will be celebrating this as some kind of victory. Well, I’m not and I won’t. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/15 "2010-07-21T14:37:44Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I understand your comment as it relates to Fox News. > > But why Beck? It seems to me he took the correct position (i.e., wait and see what the evidence is) from the beginning. What did he do wrong? Beck doesn’t “take positions”. Beck throws shit in whatever direction will bring in the most viewers. If the White House _hadn’t_ fired Sherrod he would have been maligning her non-stop. ---
**Author:** ![Pashnish\_Ewing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@Pashnish\_Ewing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pashnish_Ewing)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/16 "2010-07-21T14:41:12Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Bill Clinton would have drank all their milkshakes, banged their wives, & made them like it. I was thinking that this whole thing stunk of Rahm’s Clinton-trained caving to the right. Like they were trying to get ahead of the story by making it go away, even before the facts are known. But no matter who orchestrated it, major fuck up by the Obama WH. I don’t blame the snake for being a snake. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/17 "2010-07-21T14:41:17Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > But why Beck? It seems to me he took the correct position (i.e., wait and see what the evidence is) from the beginning. What did he do wrong? You left out a bit of his position: [QUOTE=Glenn Beck] Since the NAACP hasn’t released the tape in its entirety yet, maybe there are things that are even more incriminating on it? Maybe they believe that with her gone, the whole thing goes away? It’s possible that Shirley Sherrod is just a sacrificial lamb to placate Americans who are growing concerned over the obvious reverse racism we’re seeing now. [/QUOTE] “Wait and see and then throw out idiotic speculation” sounds closer to the truth. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/18 "2010-07-21T14:44:19Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Except that Glen Beck actually went on the air and said: Now, now- it doesn’t matter what Beck actually said. Only what he might have said if the WH had taken its time. Baad, bad naughty evil Beck. We hateses him! Main point- NAACP & WH throw one of their own under the bus, can’t actually conduct reasonable investigations or take the freakin’ heat. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/19 "2010-07-21T14:44:20Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Beck doesn’t “take positions”. Beck throws shit in whatever direction will bring in the most viewers. If the White House _hadn’t_ fired Sherrod he would have been maligning her non-stop. So YOUR position is, no matter what Beck said, he’d have been at fault? ---
**Author:** ![kingbighair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/13edae/32.png) [@kingbighair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingbighair)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448/20 "2010-07-21T14:48:13Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I understand your comment as it relates to Fox News. > > But why Beck? It seems to me he took the correct position (i.e., wait and see what the evidence is) from the beginning. What did he do wrong? Well it looks like he did his own selective video editing in order to go into another anti-communism diatribe. > [@](#): > > (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) > > SHERROD: That’s when it was revealed to me that it’s about the poor versus those who have not… > > (END VIDEO CLIP) > > So, it’s about rich vs. poor. Based on that belief, Shirley shouldn’t be fired, she should be promoted in this administration. Make her green jobs “czar.” Make her the regulatory “czar” or manufacturing “czar” or the energy “czar” or director of Medicare/Medicaid. She fits right in with nearly all of Obama’s appointments. Why didn’t the USDA and Barack Obama wait until they knew all of the facts? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-looks-worse-breitbart-or-obama-wh/547448.md?page=2)