Um, why didn’t Breitbart speak to Sherrod privately before he posted the tape?
July 30, 2010 6:21 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
As we’ve already noted, Andrew Breitbart’s Q&A with Newsweek represents a treasure trove of purposeful hypocrisy. But this comment really is off the charts, and in comes in the response to question of, why not apologize:
I’d first like to speak to her in private and outside of the media circus.
Now he wants to speak to Sherrod, after he smeared her as a racist by posting wildly out-of-context videotape and after he's been dressed down by the press for his reckless behavior? Note to Breitbart: You should have spoken to Sherrod before you posted the idiotic attack, than you wouldn’t be in the mess you’re in today.
That’s what a journalists would have done, of course. A journalist, even a partisan, opinion journalists, would have reached out to someone like Sherrod for a comment or an explanation before launching an attack like the one Breitbart sponsored. But as I mentioned on MSNBC yesterday, I suspect Breitbart intentionally did not try to speak to Sherrod privately because he was afraid that she would be able to put the tape in context and he then wouldn’t be able to use the tape.
In other words, he was more committed to the smear than he was the truth.
And isn’t it rich that Breitbart now wants to speak to Sherrod “outside of the media circus.” The irony is that by posting the Sherrod clip Breitbart intentionally set out to create a media a circus; a circus he hoped would give Democrats and Obama fits. (There's a racist on the payroll!) Instead, the circus turned on Breitbart and how he’s seeking solace with a face-to-face with Sherrod.
Gimme a break.
Likewise, putting yourself in Breitbart's shoes (yuk), and assuming that he didn't lie about knowing the whole context of the tape, it's not unreasonable for him to have not spoken with Sherrod. If, hypothetically, the tape did unambiguously reveal Sherrod to be a flaming racist (I'm having trouble even writing that), then there wouldn't be a reason to talk to her before posting the tape online.
But I don't intend to defend him. Yes, he is amazingly hypocritical. Also, of course, a dirtbag and shameful excuse for an American. The real issue, to me, is that he didn't try to speak with Sherrod shortly after his attack was debunked, but rather attempted to change the smear into another smear. That's the mark of a true propagandist, who only now realizes that the trouble he's gotten into might actually affect him negatively.
Really, he's kind of a sociopath.
Nothing more than Breitbart cynically trying to work the spin even further.
He can speak in court.
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Truth To Power
Which is why Sherrod was asked to resign - because the Obama White House realized that the right tried to do things like this, and so they've told their Cabinet members to avoid letting those kinds of things distract people from what the Obama Administration is trying to do.
Since the time when she was asked to resign, the Obama Administration realized that they need to act quickly but not rashly, and they need to ensure that the punishment fits the crime. I don't think that she should have been fired, but the fault for THAT lies with the rightwing media that LOVES to make something out of nothing and the slobs who lap up their nonsense like it's delicious.
There is no excuse for that degree of stupid.
I couldn't agree more.
Both the NAACP, Vilsack and the White House made a grave error in firing Mrs. Sherrod, based on Breithart's edited video tape.
Had they bothered to speak directly to Mrs. Sherrod BEFORE firing her all the blame would then belong to Breithart.
Now I fully understand they, the NAACP, Vilsack and the White House wanted to get in front of this non-story, but they owed Mrs. Sherrod a chance to tell her side of the story BEFORE firing her.
Instead Mrs. Sherrod appears on CNN with Tony Harris, to tell her side of the story causing the NAACP, Vilsack and the White House to all have egg on their face.
The NAACP, Vilsack and the White House all deserve SOME criticism, but in no way does exclude the race baiting right wing loony, Breithart who started this mess in the first place.
Absolutely.
And in a similar way to the efforts the right has made to mock Obama's pledge to not have a close relationship with lobbyists because he got a waiver from that policy on a couple of people, the belief was that the right would use HER previous behavior to the disadvantage of the Obama Administration.
And the reason for that fear was the rightwing media's behavior. The reason she got fired was a direct result of the kneejerk reaction that the right has and the way the rightwing media manipulates those kneejerk reactions!
I believe that YOU'RE under the mistaken impression that the fact that she's not now a racist, and that she helped the white farmer eventually with lots of help somehow erases the fact that she DID discriminate against that white farmer initially. It doesn't. She fully redeemed herself, and I don't believe it's fair to refrain from giving people a second chance - she should not be condemned because she made an error in her past. But you apparently want to deny that she ever made an error, and even President Obama has publicly admitted that she did. Obama said that we all have to work on "overcoming our own biases". If one has a bias that has to be overcome, like Sherrod did, then she errored. Again, she was able to negate that initial error by giving her full support and efforts to the white farmer before he had been disadvantaged by the lacksidaisical behavior of the white attorney that Sherrod referred him to, but it doesn't magically erase that behavior from history. It still happened.
You can choose to believe, if you want to, that there's no value in eliminating/limiting the noise that will distract from Obama's agenda - the Obama Administration disagrees. But the reason they have to be so aware of that toxic noise is because of the behavior of the rightwing media and their audience, and that's why the rightwing media is to blame.
Shirley Sherrod did not discriminate against the Spooners (white farmer and his wife).
In the 1980's Shirley Sherrod was the Georgia Field Director for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund that works PRIMARILY with Black farmer throughout the South Federation of Southern Cooperatives Land Assistance Fund - Fighting To Save Black-Owned Land Since 1967 With Cooperatives....
Mrs. Sherrod speaks of her first meeting with Mr. Spooner and how Mr. Spooner talked down to her. And ANYONE who knows the ways of the South, know that white folks did not ask for assistance from black folks back in 1986.
Needless to say, it was an uncomfortable first meeting. But
Shirley referred Mr. Spooner to a white attorney who had gone through Chapter 12 training, which she thought the Spooners needed 9Congress had passed the Chapter 12 bankruptcy provision to assist family farmers).
Shirley thought assistance was best from someone in the white community since her networks were not necessarily prepared to rally assistance to white farmers. (Keep in mind, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund grew out of the civil rights movement and PRIMARILY assisted black farmers).
Shirley Sherrod went to the fist meeting the Spooner's had with the white attorney. And she keep in close contact with the Spooners in subsequent month and years as the Spooners tried to hold on to their farm.
THAT is not discrimination in any way shape or form!
How Shirley Sherrod Saved a White-Owned Farm in South Georgia...