Media conservatives, including Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, have continued the right wing's attacks on Shirley Sherrod, who was forced to resign from her position at the Department of Agriculture after Andrew Breitbart posted edited video of a speech she gave to falsely label her a racist. These conservatives have branded Sherrod a Marxist, Maoist, communist, and socialist.
Attacking the victim, right-wing media brand Sherrod a Marxist
Written by Mike Burns
Published
Right-wing media smear Sherrod as a Marxist, Maoist, communist, and socialist
Beck: Sherrod “obviously has some sort of Marxist or redistributionist qualities to her.” On the July 21 edition of his radio show, Beck stated that Sherrod “obviously has some sort of Marxist or redistribution qualities to her.” He further said that Sherrod is “class warfare just not race warfare.” On his Fox News show, Beck said Sherrod should have been made a “czar” because “she fits in” with the “Maoists” in the Obama administration.
Mattera: “Sherrod shouldn't be given her job back. The broad is a Marxist. I have no sympathy for her.” In a July 21 post on Twitter, Human Events editor Jason Mattera wrote: “Sherrod shouldn't be given her job back. The broad is a Marxist. I have no sympathy for her.”
Limbaugh: Sherrod supports “Obamunism,” “the haves versus the have-nots and the need for redistribution.” On the July 21 broadcast of his radio show, Limbaugh said that Sherrod supports “Obamunism,” “the haves versus the have-nots and the need for redistribution.”
Crowley suggested Sherrod may be among “radicals, racists, socialists” in Obama administration. On the July 20 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News' Monica Crowley suggested that Sherrod may be among the “radicals, racists, socialists” that have been “stocked” in the Obama administration.
Hoft: Sherrod is “a communist, radical, socialist, terror-sympathizer.” In a July 21 post on his Gateway Pundit website, Jim Hoft suggested that Sherrod is “a communist, radical, socialist, terror-sympathizer.” Hoft further wrote: “White farmer-hater Shirley Sherrod is linked to Bill Ayers.” He then highlighted a “must-read story” at the Illinois-Review and The Washington Examiner which he said “reveals that Ms. Sherrod's husband is a former honcho in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee back in the 1960's.”
Right-wing media have a history of attacking those facing hardship
Right-wing media mock the uninsured. During the debate over health care reform, right-wing media figures mocked Democrats' descriptions of hardships faced by their constituents who lack health insurance, including a story Rep. Louise Slaughter told about a woman who wore dentures that previously belonged to her dead sister. For example, Limbaugh said: “So if you don't have any teeth, so what? What's applesauce for?” Beck also ridiculed Slaughter's story, stating: “I've read the Constitution. ... I didn't see that you had a right to teeth.”
Limbaugh and Beck wage war on the poor. Limbaugh has made a number of comments that deride the plight of the poor. Among other examples, he has stated that if hungry children can't find food, “there's always the neighborhood dumpster,” has criticized the homeless for having cell phones, and has disparaged the United Nations Children Fund's “Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF” campaign by calling it "[o]ne of the biggest scams on the face of the Earth." Similarly, Beck attacked a woman who was concerned about problems her children might face because of poor Internet access.