Upon watching a different version, it seems that people were mostly agreeing with her tone about giving as good as she got. (paraphrased) “While he was taking that time trying to tell me how superior he was to me, I was trying to figure out how much help I would give to him. [murmurs in the crowd]”.
That’s the only evidence of ‘laughter’ I could find (but haven’t watched the 45 min version) and I really don’t find it that damning. Maybe I’m biased in that I understand that younger people think differently than I do.
I agree that the WH came off as overreactionary to this, but I doubt its mistake will have any political fallout. I can’t see any liberals being so outraged over this that they vote for a Republican or Teabagger, and it’s not as if any conservatives would likely be thinking “see, this is why I can’t get with Obama…he’s always witchhunting black people!” The independents probably are thinking about other, more weightier issues. Like the economy.
Unfortunately, this is one of those situations in which doing the right thing (waiting to get more information before rushing to judgement) could have caused more damage to the Obama admin than rushing to judgement did. His political opponents are just waiting for any excuse to accuse Obama of being a racist hypocrite, to whine “…if this had been a white official, he’d have been deep fried and crucified!!” When you have that hanging over your head 24/7, there will eventually be casualities like Sherrod. Which sucks as all get out, but it’s the reality we’re living in.
Contrary to what other people seem to be saying in this thread, I actually think this episode will hurt the right’s credibility when it comes to playing the race card. The next time a blogger or FOX News tries to accuse someone aligned with the WH of anti-white racism, people may be more inclined to question their veracity. Maybe I’m being too optimistic though.
In Westmoreland v.CBS, General Westmoreland alleged that CBS presented heavily edited tapes, asked biased questions, and selected only the interviews that made him look worst - basically, this same kind of conduct. Applying the New York Times v. Sullivan standard, the judge in the case ruled that this was insufficient to prove actual malice.
Isn’t the standard set lower for non-public figures? Dragging a gal into the limelight like this hardly seems a friendly act.
Forgive me. I am old and forgetful.
But didn’t Dan Rather get fired for reporting a story as true, that he did not research enough himself? He didn’t make up the story, he just didn’t verify it enough. And this bb guy and faux news don’t check out anything and report it as true and nothing happens?
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The firing was not so much about the untruth of the report as his acceptance of and reliance on a memo that was faked.
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CBS is a real news network with an estimable and credible reputation, whereas Breitbart has his own rightwing, partisan blog and Fox is, well, Fox.
She is very likely a public figure, as she was speaking about work done as a government official to political activists at a public event.
The particulars of the case are very different. And presumably, since he filed Westmorland’s lawyers thought they had a case. Is it really cut a dried that she has no recourse? From what I know about the Westmorland thing CBS didn’t outright lie or make a statement about X into a statement about Y by clipping out sections.
I’m just not seeing the similarities except that it’s a convenient liberals do it too thing to throw up.
The story is being told that the WH knew nothing of the fireing and Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is claiming it was all him. Taking one for the team?
Morning Joe was having a conversation about how quickly this admin will throw people under the bus for political reasons, and used Rev Wright as an example. WTF???
I tend to believe this. I really don’t think the president himself would take the time to listen to every right wing nutjob complaint or he’d have no time to do anything else. OTOH, how often does a scandal involving an employee of the Department of Agriculture make the lead story on the news?
Morning Joe was having a conversation about how quickly this admin will throw people under the bus for political reasons, and used Rev Wright as an example. WTF???
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Wright jumped in front of the bus and insisted it run over him. Obama’s speech- which was a masterpiece of a speech that will be included in college textbooks in many years- gave him an out, but it wasn’t good enough for Wright. In addition, Wright himself was the subject of “out of context” editing; literally, the moment I heard ‘his’ comment “the chickens are coming home to roost” I thought “That’s not Wright, that’s what Malcolm X said when JFK was killed”, and sure enough… he was discussing the JFK/Malcolm X incident. This isn’t to say Wright didn’t make incendiary comments- he did- but some of his worst were taken out of context.
[quote=“Sampiro, post:110, topic:547448”]
I tend to believe this. I really don’t think the president himself would take the time to listen to every right wing nutjob complaint or he’d have no time to do anything else. OTOH, how often does a scandal involving an employee of the Department of Agriculture make the lead story on the news?
I found and listened to Wright’s sermons from which the objectionalble clips came. It demonstrated pretty dramatically how dishonest the stories were. It’s discouraging how eagerly people eat these stories up after they’ve been demonstrated to be bullshit over and over again. Doesn’t anyone in the GOP have the guts to call them what they are?
I don’t think Obama even knew this lady existed in more than the vaugest way till the morning after the firing. He’s got more important shit on his mind. And is probably pretty darn pissed off about the whole thing.
OK as far as it goes, for a mea fuckup. A bit more abject remorse and repentance would be an improvement.
Here’s what Glenn Beck had to say about it tonight:
http://tv.gawker.com/5593205/glenn-beck-compares-shirley-sherrod-debacle-to-911
The transcript for the full video.
She clearly stated her racial bias to a room full of people who are suppose to represent the fight against such biases. That she ended up helping the farmer does not excuse her behavior or her self described racial biases.
**“I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So, I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do.”
“So I took him to a white lawyer that we had – that had…attended some of the training that we had provided, 'cause Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted for the family farmer. So I figured if I take him to one of them that his own kind would take care of him”.**
Faced with having to help a white person? One of his own kind? WTH? Sounds like she has issues to me if this is how she relates her personal experiences to a civil rights group.
A comment from same:
This was only a test. If you didn’t laugh, there is still some possibility of you not going straight to Hell.
You’ve never heard a “Come To Jesus” story before? Yes, this was her default, at the time, 24 years ago. And then she had a change of heart, realized that it wasn’t a black/white problem but a rich/poor one, and went back to the Spooners’ case and saved their farm for them. She related her own bias and reluctance to help a white person as a set-up to talk about her realization that her bias was as wrong as a white person’s bias against a black person.
You really didn’t read any further than it took to prove your own point to yourself, did you?
As a liberal, I admire the right when they do this stuff.
Didn’t they know the truth would come out in a day or so? Or do they just not care? I assume they don’t care (like with Obama and the madrassa claim, things like that) because they know people who want to believe it will believe it anyway.
But the right got the best of all worlds with this one
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Even after the correction, their diehard tea party followers are still going to believe the original story about Sherrod being racist (just like they still believe Obama raised taxes, that he was born in Kenya, that ACORN stole the election, etc). People who want to believe Obama is evil now have another reason to do so.
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The right can now hammer the WH about how spineless and pathetic they are.
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The base of the democratic party is demoralized because we realize how weak our party’s leadership is
All in all, good job right wingers. You guys know how to play politics.
Who looks worse? Obama and the white house. They have shown how wimpy and easy to trick/dominate they are. Now if they hire Sherrod back they look bad. If they don’t, they look bad.
Shit, you’re not even attempting to get the context of the story. You’re still quoting from the piece Breitbart misrepresented and not paying attention to the rest of it.
You really don’t get it, Magiver? Let me break it down a bit.
Its a standard structure. The speaker is confessional, relating how woeful a person he was, until he found Jesus, or stopped drinking, or Jesus stopped drinking…whatever. The foundation must be lain, the speaker confesses. Then comes the part about taking the donkey on the Damascus Turnpike and then Something Happened.
It varies, of course, sometimes a pretty good person becomes a somewhat better person, sometimes an unspeakable swine does an existential backflip to a sterling fellow, it varies.
But the structure remains the same, the confessional leads to the moment of aha!, the little light goes on, and a better person arises. If you clip the structure right before the aha!..all you’ve got left is the confessional, where the speaker admits to faults and failings now overcome!
Commonly, this is done in shout/response cadence. The speaker relates how his sins and corruptions drove him to dreadful acts, and the audience shouts approval. But not approval of the dreadful acts, but approval of the unburdening of the repentant, the madrigal son returns, that sort of thing. They are not approving the acts themselves so much as urging the speaker to “get it all out”.
To an ignorant or determined mind viewing the shortened version, it could appear that she is celebrating her racism to an audience cheering her on. And there’s nothing wrong with that, except that it just ain’t so.