Your comments indicate you don’t know what’s in the full video. The statement about steering the white guy to “his people” is at the end of the edited video, not the full speech. It’s not the end of her story.
Yeah, strange how that doesn’t seem to quite match up with his own words posted by himself on his own website when he first “broke” the story of the video, where he said things like:
"In this piece you will see video evidence of racism coming from a federal appointee and NAACP award recipient "
and
"We are in possession of a video from in which Shirley Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, speaks at the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia. In her meandering speech to what appears to be an all-black audience, this federally appointed executive bureaucrat lays out in stark detail, that her federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions.
In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn’t do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from “one of his own kind”. She refers him to a white lawyer.
Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. "
Yeah, he totally never meant to paint Sherrod as a racist! And even his backpedaling is wrong, as the full video shows that the NAACP audience present is listening to and approving of a story told by a woman about how she got beyond her own racial prejudices, *not *a story about how a black woman acted racist against whites in her official duties.
If Brietbart showed the whole video ,he would not have had a story at all. But like the ACORN lies, he has little connection to truth. He is operating with an agenda and the facts just get in the way.
After ACORN ,Obama reacted too quickly. I know he was trying to defuse a possible problem before it got traction, but he still should have waited a while. Now he can not dump it all in Brietbart’s lap because he allowed an innocent woman to be fired without due process.
I find it troubling that you uncritically accept Breitbart’s backpeddaling spin and go further to foist it upon us as truth. Of course it’s as you understand it, even in the face of Breitbart being a demonstrable liar.
Media Matters has already taken note of this slick little effort to weasel out of the situation, and wonders how many in the media will do as Bricker has done here. Of course Breitbart’s target was Sherrod.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007210024
As to the OP, why choose? Obama and Secretary Tom No-sack are gutless. That doesn’t mean that Breitbart and the rest of the right wing manufactured outrage machine are any less despicable. Throw a heaping dose of blame at the media in general, who continue right now to give airtime to a dirt-sack like Breitbart.
Good point. I was simply taking his word.
On review, I think you’re absolutely right. His initial attack was against Sherrod, and only now is he trying to spin it as an attack on the NAACP reaction.
When Breitbart does things like this don’t the people defamed sue him for defamation of character?
I realize libel can be difficult to prove but something like this seems a slam dunk. He absolutely was out to defame her and the NAACP and he did so by publishing a video so far out of context as to utterly change its character and make it not what Sherrod was saying.
IANAL
It actually does look like libel to me. I gave a short explanation in post 57. Her reputation was certainly harmed and I think that even if he posted the video exactly as he received it, he published it with reckless disregard to its truthfulness. I guess the argument from his end would be that the video itself is real, it’s just presented in a completely misleading fashion, including the text. I’m not sure if that is any kind of legal defense.
They. Don’t. Care.
Wanna bet this ends up with Obama, Vilsack and Sherrod sharing a beer in the Rose Garden?
IANAL either, but technically I don’t think he committed libel. The video was really her, and there’s no law that I know of requiring him to show the full clip. If there were then 3/4 of all political candidates could get arrested for their campaign ads.
The way this is going they’ll probably invite her to have a beer and learn she’s a recovering alcoholic. “Obama Causes Relapse- USDA Employee takes Cabinet Member Hostage with Broken Bottle- ‘Teachable Moment’ says White House”.
It’s really her, and that may be his defense or argument. But the implications of the text in the video are incorrect and very misleading. Kokopilau quoted and linked to the post Breitbart made about the issue.
That might be actionable, especially considering she’s not what anybody could realistically classify as a public figure.
It gets even better (and by better, I mean worse).
Now that Andrew Breitbart has been shown to have possibly edited the Sherrod video, and certainly proven to have lied about it, he’s suddenly come to Jesus about the necessity of checking on the veracity of things before reporting on them…
…by doubting that the footage of the farmer and his wife shown on CNN (where she talks about how much they like and respect Sherrod after Sherrod helped save their family farm) really and truly shows that farmer and his wife after all.
You can still libel a public figure, though. The public figure just has to prove that you either knew what you were saying was false, or were in reckless disregard of the truth. Unless he had made some kind of effort to get verification from the NAACP or Shirley Sherrod, there’s a case to be made that he was that reckless.
The allegations are getting just incredibly loony as election nears. My brother is running for office in Alabama and is the target of a smear campaign that includes, among other things, a picture of an earringed Obama with my brother’s name and associating him with, among other things, being pro-gay rights (news to me), Green (evidently a bad word and, in the case of my brother, completely untrue- he doesn’t even recycle) and- this is the prize to me- sympathetic to the Black Panthers. (My brother looks like what he is- a chubby middle aged rich white guy; his association with the Black Panthers is about as natural as my 5’11 and 50 pounds overweight middle aged self being star player of the Boston Celtics.) In any case, I’m convinced it comes from a Tea Party cell down there, one obviously without access to a computer or graphic editing software. (I improved it and sent it back to him with the request he give them my version in case it goes on TV outside the south; I hate to think people would get the impression Alabamians can’t Photoshop; I’d link to it but it has identifying names and such, but both versions are on my Facebook page.)
We were facing the worst financial downturn in almost a century. Nobel prize winning economist recommends a HUUUUGE stimulus. Facing criticsm from the right, the Obama adminsitration sets its sights on a much smaller stimulus.
Most thoughtful people agree health care is broken. Most experts think that a single payer system is the way to go. Facing criticism from the right, the Obama administration sets its sights on such a watered down version of health care reform that doesn’t actually solve the health care crisis.
NAACP accuses the Teabaggers of having some racist elements. The Teabaggers tacitly admit this is true when they kick out one of the racists. Far right hits back by accusing teh NAACP of racism and shows a federal emlpoyee admitting to racism in an out of context video. Facing criticsm form the right, the Obama administration fires the federal employee before getting the whole story.
Does anyone else think that Jesse Jackson actually managed to cut off Obama’s balls and just didn’t tell anyone about it?
I’m beginning to wonder. Too soon to tell which way November will go, but I think he’s squandered two years of the most prime opportunity for change any president will ever get in interest of appeasing people who would still hate him if he solved every problem the country had.
I just had to endure 40 minutes of pure HELL because the little local mom and pop tire shop I go to and who I had put a couple tires on my truck this morning had Rush (puke, gag) on the radio. He was doing the very spin mentioned above - spouting about the NAACP’s audience’s reaction.
That’s kind of funny, Damuri Ajashi, but the thing is Barack Obama can’t make laws. That’s Congress’s job. There are tons of things he could’ve done differently but that political reality is always going to be there. They should not have jumped the gun and fired Sherrod or had her fired. Probably they will just have to live with that and get smarter for next time.
AP is also buying the new spin:
As described above, that is not the case.
However their argument is now, “Maybe he didn’t post it for that reason, but it’s still a valid point. The NAACP audience laughed at her story.” Which they are going to have to respond to at some point.
They must explain why they didn’t gasp in horror.