Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

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I Was Wrong

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There was one group of people who were immediately defending Sherrod from the Breitbart smears. Charles Johnson and the Lizardoids at LGF, yesterday:

Let me sum it up; Breitbart has EARTH-SHATTERING video of Shirley Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, speaking at the 2009 NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia. But wait, it gets even worse.

Sherrod tells a story about a white farmer who patronizes and condescends to her, which leads to her not wanting to go out of her way to help the guy. She ends up referring him to a white lawyer to continue pursuing his case.

Can you BELIEVE IT! I don’t know how the NAACP will ever recover from Andrew Breitbart’s devastating master stroke.

OK, I’m being a little sarcastic. This is actually really really stupid and inconsequential.

CJ then consistently defended her the last 24 hours.

Reader Interactions

199Comments

  1. 1.

    Mnemosyne

    It’s been so bizarre to watch Johnson’s transformation as he realizes how completely full of shit his former allies in the right wing are.

    I wasn’t around here for your transmogrification, so I guess I’m getting to watch his instead.

  2. 2.

    James Hare

    When exactly did LGF turn sane? I know it happened awhile ago, but I never did figure out what was the turning point. One of the gratifying things about the Internet has been some of the converts. The small proof that people CAN chuck aside crazy political beliefs is almost a necessity for caring about American politics these days.

  3. 3.

    beltane

    Charles Johnson is a recently escaped dissident from the Soviet Teaf**ker Republic of Klanistan. He is intimately familiar with their ways and knew what to expect.

    The PUMAs thought they had to find the Whitey tape; the Republicans know they can just make one themselves and the media will do the rest of the job for them.

  4. 4.

    MNPundit

    @James Hare: When his rightwing allies (p. Gellar) started openly adoring European Xenophobic racists.

    Also once again, Cole, the left now that it is aware of the story is condemning it as usual. So I think it’s time for a fucking apology.

  5. 5.

    DonBoy

    Instead of looking it up, I’ll answer that according to my memory the thing that drove Johnson out of the right was not so much some particular thing, but the fact that when he expressed some disagreement with whatever particular thing he didn’t quite go along with, the usual howler monkeys turned on him. So yes, but what did he think was going on the previous 8 years or so?

  6. 6.

    Paula

    Well, in all honesty, I only heard about all this when logging into BJ just moments ago, so I can’t claim to being on the side of right or whatever …

    And given that the dust seems to have risen and settled away from my general awareness, I still have a hard time giving a shit. This seemed like a questionable story from the beginning, and it’s very easy to see why people wanted to ignore it.

    Also, I have no idea why Sherrod would want to return to work for people who treated her like this, so I admit that I’m a little bemused by pleas that she should be reinstated.

  7. 7.

    Midnight Marauder

    If this update from LGF is to be believed, the tide could turn mighty quickly against Breitbart and his horde of idiocy:

    Andrew Breitbart is now on CNN, and he’s digging in and getting even more deranged and hateful about the Shirley Sherrod story; he just said that the two white farmers who praised Sherrod were liars, and probably planted by someone.

    I mean, we know for a fact that both Spooners who have appeared on CNN are who they say they are (Thanks, Dennis Green). So if this is Breitbart’s next move, methinks he just handed the White House quite the gift.

  8. 8.

    sven

    I hate to say this…

    Seriously, I HATE to say this…

    but I am glad CJ is on our side now.

    He knows how the game is played and is a fucking pitbull in making his point.

    I love Ezra Klein, MYglesias makes some great points, TNC is always worth reading but thoughtful comment and analysis just don’t work against Fox News and ABreitbart.

    I’m as bitter about the Iraq/Terrorism/DHS stuff as anyone, but when this shit happens and nuance ain’t in play, CJ is one of the best.

  9. 9.

    Midnight Marauder

    @MNPundit:

    Also once again, Cole, the left now that it is aware of the story is condemning it as usual. So I think it’s time for a fucking apology.

    He already did, ass.

    And for all of you who have given into fits of angst over my comments earlier saying no one in the administration or “the left” came to her defense, I include myself in that. I just meant that no one defended the poor woman, no one said “slow down, these guys did the same thing with ACORN.” Myself included.

  10. 10.

    jeff

    It’s been nearly NINE YEARS since I visited LGF. I remember pretty well when Johnson, whose stuff I’d been reading in the year after 9/11, banned me–even though I hardly ever commented. Anyway, I cannot recall a starker change in a grown person since St. Paul. I would like to thank him for his mitzvah over Sherrod thing, but his site doesn’t allow comments from outside the lizardoidom or whatever.

  13. 13.

    mantis

    I was on every wingnut blog I could find pointing out the bullshit, yesterday afternoon. I knew it had to be bullshit (it came from Brietbart), and I noticed her mention that the events in her story occurred just after chapter 12 was established for family farms. That put the story in 1986, and finding bio info on Ms. Sherrod I was able to place her as working with a farm coop in Georgia at the time, and not for the government. Took me about five minutes of searching. There is no doubt in my mind Brietbart saw the whole tape, knew the whole story, and deliberately edited it for this purpose.

    None on the left were writing about it, and the first person who did who I thought might pay attention was Charles Johnson. He did pay attention, and has been all over this today.

    The whole thing makes me sick. If the White House doesn’t make it right with Ms. Sherrod, they will be seriously pissing off this pretty tireless supporter.

    Anyone’s words can be used against them if you edit enough of them out. Never trust a Brietbart tape.

  14. 14.

    pk

    This woman almost deserves a halo. Her father was apparently murdered by the KKK and she was determined not to leave the south and let it tarnish her life.
    Breitbart belongs in hell.

  15. 15.

    beltane

    @pk: In the Middle Ages, a person found guilty of slander could have their tongue ripped out. Not that I would approve of this or anything.

  16. 16.

    trollhattan

    @freelancer:

    when have Breitbart’s TV appearances not resembled a parrot on crack?

    Crack dealersParrots could probably sue him for sullying their reputations. He’s a larger and much angrier edition of Glenn Beck. But the meanie librooles made him that way.

  17. 17.

    wilfred

    Sorry, no sale. His trek towards liberal respectability is littered with the most rabid race/religion baiting imaginable.

    LGF Watch had his number last month, in regard to the murders on the Palestinian relief flotilla:

    If this were 2007, he would of course be coining amusing nicknames for the victims, heaping scorn on Turkey and Europe and the UN and (why not?) the moldering corpse of Yassir Arafat, and cheering silently as his readers spew every anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian cliché imaginable. But this is 2010, so he can’t do that.

    Got another nine.

    http://lgfwatch.blogspot.com/

  18. 18.

    dmsilev

    Erick fucking Erickson said that it looked like Breitbart attacked an innocent target.

    Sheesh.

    dms

  19. 19.

    SteveinSC

    I am late to this, but not by much. Nevertheless, I wanted to be earlier in the comments. I cannot tell you how flamed about this I am. That fucking “strikingly terminally superficial” Scarface and his pack of cretins (ably seconded by Noron O’Donnell) were apparently in this lynch-mob this morning, but I missed it. We need to bring back the “fairness doctrine” and make those TV assholes run rebuttal. Jesus, I am fucking pissed. Obama must act and act soon to restore to this violated women her job and dignity.

  20. 20.

    Mnemosyne

    @wilfred:

    So they haven’t figured out the answer to their question in the 6 weeks since that post from May 31st?

    Johnson certainly has at least a few more years of work ahead of him to expiate his many past sins of racism and hatred, but I’m willing to say he’s at least on the right path.

  21. 21.

    Joseph Nobles

    @Mnemosyne: I thought I couldn’t get any angrier about this situation. Now Glenn Beck, a crooked blackjack dealer in the race card game, gets to play the high holy saint while sticking an ace up his sleeve.

    I wish there were a God, because the special place in Hell he’d prepare for Breitbart would be a sight for sore eyes.

  22. 22.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne: I have to say, good for Glenn Beck (cannot believe I’m typing those words!) It’s funny because I had the same analogy in mind when I was reading about the whole Sherrod-NAACP-white farmer thing earlier today. It seemed to me like someone giving testimony at a 12-step meeting, describing how they used to behave and how things have changed for them. I have always had a very low opinion of Mr. Beck, and I expect I will again tomorrow, but for now I say “good on him.”

    And apropos of nothing (or maybe, apropos of everything), has anyone seen the story that he has macular dystrophy and may be going blind? I guess it’s true, but with him you just never know.

  24. 24.

    Midnight Marauder

    @dmsilev:

    Erick fucking Erickson said that it looked like Breitbart attacked an innocent target.

    Just when I thought my mind could not be blown anymore…

    Is this some kind of Bizarro World version of Peak Wingnut?

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne

    @me:

    Of course he is, but it’s still totally awesome to see one evil (Beck) picking a fight with another evil (Breitbart).

    A major split is brewing here in the right wing noise machine, and I’m anxiously waiting to see how it pans out.

  28. 28.

    Comrade Mary

    The full video is up at TPM.

    And I’m sorry, but I’m not saying good for Beck about this. He’s mouthing the words but he doesn’t mean them. He’s continuing his war against Obama using any weapon at his disposal. He doesn’t give a flying fuck about Sherrod.

  29. 29.

    Mnemosyne

    @Joseph Nobles:

    I know it’s sick, but I’m starting to have fun watching the right-wingers rip into one another over a longtime civil rights worker.

    If Beck and Breitbart get into a real fight, Beck will win, but it’s gonna be long, bloody and very ugly.

  30. 30.

    sven

    @mantis: That settles it, he’s the second fastest gun in the West, or should I say was the second fastest…

    You beat me on the vid by seconds! (nice job!)

  31. 31.

    trizzlor

    And again we have to learn from our own fucking mistakes. The reason Breitbart is a problem is not because he is a GOP partisan, but because he is unscrupulous in his reporting and willing to defame innocent people to get a scoop. And what do you know, the media gives him enough chances and he defames an innocent person and ruins her career. Color me shocked.

    Seriously, I can’t remember the last time the media acted fairly preemptively, it’s always post hoc apologies and then back to the same shit.

  32. 32.

    Nellcote

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I have to say, good for Glenn Beck

    Beck is saying it’s the WH’s fault for believing FoxNews. How is this not the same old twisted bullshi*?

  33. 33.

    lamh32

    Faux-pression: Racism and the Cult of White Victimhood
    by tim wise

    …Once again, a case of individual racism–which turned out to be phony anyway–gets the attention, while the institutionalized mistreatment of people of color goes ignored.

    The pattern is familiar. In every generation whites have hyped fears of black anger, black bigotry and the supposed desire of African Americans to exact revenge on whites. From fears about slave rebellions, to claims that integration would lead black children to knife white children in the hallways and rape white girls, to paranoia about Obama’s secret plan for “white slavery,” the cult of white victimhood has long had its charter members. Sadly, nowadays the cult has the attention of the media and a white public already anxious about changing demographics, the presence of a black president and economic insecurity. Unless the targets of their race-baiting (including the President) show the courage to push back and expose them for the venal fear-pimps they are, their methods will only get more extreme, their lies more bold, and their ability to inflict lasting damage on the nation more definitive.

  34. 34.

    mantis

    @trizzlor:

    The reason Breitbart is a problem is not because he is a GOP partisan, but because he is unscrupulous in his reporting and willing to defame innocent people to get a scoop.

    Propaganda is not reporting.

  35. 35.

    El Cid

    I’d like to see the Sooner family (the white farmers Sherrod assisted) ask to meet Blightfart, along with some other of their nice, strapping Georgia farmboy younger relatives to discuss whether or not they were fake or planted.

  37. 37.

    Midnight Marauder

    @Comrade Mary:

    And I’m sorry, but I’m not saying good for Beck about this. He’s mouthing the words but he doesn’t mean them. He’s continuing his war against Obama using any weapon at his disposal. He doesn’t give a flying fuck about Sherrod.

    Exactly. He is just using this incident as another club to beat up the Obama Administration. He could not give a fuck less about the actual problem in this situation, which is yet another reprehensible demonstration of Andrew Breitbart’s slanderous prowess.

  38. 38.

    Joseph Nobles

    @Mnemosyne: Normally I’d be right with you, but any glee for me is sicklied over by the Ag Department’s out-of-proportion response. The depth of the bunker mentality is just horrifying to see.

  39. 39.

    Belvoir

    Why is Breitbart still brought onto talk shows? Does anyone doubt there is a very targeted, racist animus behind whom he attacks? Could it be any clearer? Does it have to be spelled out?

    Badly edited hatchet jobs, all targeting blacks. It’s his career now. There is no goddamned reason to doubt this is his MO, his life’s work. And he’s still invited on CNN? We are far more fucked than I thought then. Breitbart’s racial animus against blacks is being legitimized and mainstreamed, as we speak. We’re seriously going here? Fuck me, fuck CNN- Breitbart is a stone cold racist, no mistake. He hates blacks. And he’s being “normalized” on TV, like it’s just his opinion, rather than his brazenly trying to normalize the fervid, violent racist ideas that have plagued US history, to understate it. Breitbart is not someone who should be received in polite society, or decent society, or a society that has any sense of right and fucking wrong. Breitbart is fucking wrong. So of course he is showered with attention.

  41. 41.

    El Cid

    By the way, I’d just like to take a moment to flatly say that Shirley and Charles Sherrod were among our great civil and voting rights grassroots heroes and went on to lead a legacy of fighting for economic justice for African American and poor and rural people, a legacy stretching across generations.

    We need to be clear about this. Sherrod and her husband are honored civil, voting, and economic rights heroes. Her husband has a monument dedicated to his struggle in Albany, GA.

    It wasn’t just an employee who was smeared, though that would be wrong enough — this is more right wingers attacking and taking down our nation’s African American fighters for racial, community, and economic justice, using nothing more than flat-out falsehoods, propaganda, and a bitterly lazy and deceitful major news media.

  44. 44.

    demo woman

    @Belvoir: Why? Breitbart is the new spokesman for the right for the same reason that Sarah’s every twitter is covered as breaking news.
    Just cuz.

  46. 46.

    Anton Sirius

    @jeff:

    I just had a conversation like this at work today. One of my co-workers saw me reading LGF and looked at me like I’d grown a third head or something, so I had to explain to him about Johnson’s conversion/epiphany. He, too, hadn’t looked at the site in years, and had his mind well and truly blown by the idea that Charles Johnson, of all the bloggers in the world, could change that much.

    As for commenting on LGF, he does open windows every once in a while where you can sign up for a new account if you want to post rather than lurk. Just so long as you don’t troll the thread, it’s pretty wild west. Hell, you could probably shoot him an email saying, “Hey, you banned me a bunch of years ago and I’m not even sure why, and was just wondering if I could start commenting again.”

  48. 48.

    cleek

    @Mnemosyne:

    When Glenn Beck is publicly saying that Sherrod got screwed, you know that Breitbart has painted himself into a corner.

    When Glenn Beck is publicly saying that Sherrod got screwed, you also know how damaging this could be to Obama. Beck isn’t about to take Obama’s side on this, or anything. He knows which side makes Obama look bad, and that’s where he’s set up camp.

    Vilsack should be cut loose or be forced to publically beg Sherrod back.

    but, i suspect Team Obama will keep quiet on this for another two or three days, to make sure the damage has a chance to really spread and sink in nice and deep. then he’ll give a speech in Dipshit, Iowa, and mention the incident in a toss-off one-liner.

    idiots. cowardly, nail-biting, idiots.

  49. 49.

    sven

    @El Cid: Thanks, I hadn’t known this. After your comment I did a quick check and here is Charles Sherrod is on wikipedia last edit 10 Feb 2010. Wikipedia currently redirects Shirley Sherrod to The United States Department of Agriculture listing (and a terrible posting on the issue). If anyone reading ever works on the Wiki, she deserves a page of her own with complete and accurate information!

    Thanks for the heads up…

  50. 50.

    Keith G

    This is getting fun:

    Tonight, we’re taking on the story of Shirley Sherrod. An African American worker at the Agriculture, she lost her job yesterday after Andrew Brietbart’s Big Government site posted video of her recent speech to an NAACP gathering. In the version posted by Big Government, Sherrod says that she wasn’t as motivated to help a white farmer who talked down to in her former job, in the 1980s.

    http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/

  53. 53.

    Anton Sirius

    @El Cid:

    Oh. Oh damn. I knew the name Sherrod was vaguely familiar, but… damn.

    Somebody needs to bring the hammer down on Breitbrat’s boozy head, stat, and by somebody I mean Obama.

    Even Sidney Poitier slapped back, Mr. President.

  54. 54.

    KRK

    @El Cid: Thank you for saying that. I mentioned something along those lines in the earlier thread. They really are heroes. Of course, that earlier thread has ass rabies all over it because LD had to go a little crazy trying to argue with everyone about what a terrible racist Shirley Sherrod is (hooboy), and so her (LD’s) partner had to distract everyone from that downward spiral with about a hundred comments about the completely irrelevant topic of at-will employment.

  55. 55.

    Mnemosyne

    @cleek:

    As I’ve said, I don’t think that the White House caused this problem, but they sure as hell can fix it if they choose by overruling Vilsack.

    I’d kinda like them to hang back until tomorrow and see how this shakes out, though. When you have a cripple fight going on, you don’t want to cut it short.

  56. 56.

    batgirl

    @Comrade Mary: Word. And when he makes his next crazy racist comment, he’ll go “I’m not racist, I defended Sherrod.” And that is the WH’s fault, not Breitbart.

    I still think there is a small chance that if Obama came out personally, he could make this right and make a dent in Breitbart and the right-wing bullshit machine.

  57. 57.

    WereBear

    I heard she was “forced to resign,” not fired. I don’t know about DC; but in NYC, I was taught you never resign if you were innocent.

    If they are screwing you over, make them work for it; make them fire you. It creates a different dynamic which makes the situation slightly better for you; at the least, you are eligible for unemployment benefits.

    But I don’t know if it’s different in government.

  58. 58.

    sven

    @Paddy: wow

    That video is amazing.

    If Breitbart is still acceptable in polite company after this I really am moving to Vancouver. (Washington, but moving damnit)

  60. 60.

    patroclus

    She’s a historic civil rights heroine and she just got defamed by Andrew Breitbart big-time. This is tragic. Absolutely appalling. I can’t believe Vilsack still has his job.

  61. 61.

    demo woman

    Unbelievable video. The President needs to listen to this and have a little chat with the Sec’y of Agriculture.

  62. 62.

    Anton Sirius

    Hang on – Charles Sherrod still seems to be alive, so that clearly isn’t Shirley’s father. Do we know if and how they’re related?

  63. 63.

    Nick

    Sorry, I can’t fault Vilsack for doing what they’re did. When this story first broke, it looked potentially devestating politically, as all stories with race are for a black President’s administration. Obama got burned with Rev. Wright and he got burned with Henry Louis Gates. The administration did what we liberals always tell them to do, get ahead of the story. It turned out the story was false.

    Should she have her job back? sure, but this is exactly how you handle what could be politically devestating story. Lets say Breitbart hadn’t lied and she did make that statement? Because at first, the odds were in that direction. I’m not surprised it turned out to be false, but I wouldn’t have predicted it.

    Plus, if you were really scared, you’d FIRE her, not force her to resign. Forcing her to resign seems to hint to me that they wanted to get in front of the story and see where it goes. Maybe they’ll restore her, maybe they’ll give her a job in a few weeks or months.

    Let the right wing get buried in this. Sherrod’s already been vindicated.

  64. 64.

    El Cid

    Watching Sherrod’s speech, a couple of elements.

    She had to deal with her father having been killed by a white farmer, still during the days of segregation.

    She mentions how unusual it was for a real grassroots — you know, “community” — organizer to head up the sorts of development agencies she now does. She has, in her words, “paid some dues“.

    The white farmer she sent to a lawyer had been wasting the farmer’s time and money for months & months, and it took her — Sherrod — to find a lawyer who would get them the proper bankruptcy filed.

    She even lays down a living, breathing class context to show what is shared by both blacks and whites on the downside of the economic spectrum.

    She says about the 2009-spring 2010 eruption of racism from the anti-Obama side that ‘we’ (i.e., the NAACP attendees, mostly black) put up with Bush for 8 years without doing anything the least bit like what they were doing now.

    There’s a big part of me that would like to see Sherrod raising some hell about this.

    I sure do wish some billionaire would spot the funds to her to lead a newer, bigger, hungrier ACORN. We god-damn sure need one.

  66. 66.

    WereBear

    @Nick: Sorry, I can’t fault Vilsack for doing what they’re did.

    I can.

    If my company called me and said I was fired because the town drunk staggered into the office and claimed I was throwing out my work instead of doing it… they would be wrong, too.

  68. 68.

    El Cid

    @sven: I click on it and the screen title is “Breitbart sparks debate on race,” one of those vapid standardized phrases which say nothing and obscure everything.

  69. 69.

    eemom

    I am thinking — hoping — this will be fixed, and the lady rehired.

    As for the LGF dude, he was just following the trail our own honorable John had already blazed — i.e., there is more rejoicing in Left Bloggerstan over one Repented Wingnut, than over 99 lifelong DFH’s.

    (I can haz cute doggie/kitty/baby posts 24/7 now plz? kthxbai)

  70. 70.

    Progressive Elitist

    I’m not an I told you so kind of person, but am I just living in a liberal bubble where I believe much of the ACORN video was completely faked (edited)? I mean am I wrong about that? Didn’t Stewart, et al go back and apologize for running with the ACORN story?

    When this news broke I wasn’t going to believe it for a second until it was independently confirmed. And of course it was confirmed to be yet another lie.

    This guy is just a liar and hopefully now everyone knows it and won’t get fooled next time.

  71. 71.

    Nick

    @WereBear:

    If my company called me and said I was fired because the town drunk staggered into the office and claimed I was throwing out my work instead of doing it… they would be wrong, too.

    this is a completely different situation, I don’t understand how you can not see that.

    your CEO is in the public eye and under constant attack from a right wing media looking to incite a race war over every little thing. The administration never wins when the narrative is about race, ever…and today was supposed to be the day they bash the GOP for voting against unemployment benefits. They wanted this story off the front page ASAP. I don’t blame them.

  72. 72.

    sven

    @Paddy: Also too, is John King the softest interview on T.V. right now? He asks open ended questions, never follows up, never challenges an assertion, is spectacularly uninformed on whatever topic is at hand, and lets his guests choose which questions to answer.

    When King asks Breitbart point blank if he is even aware the story in the video is from 1986 and not the present, Breitbart randomly starts talking about Congressman John Lewis and racism during health care reform. It is that blatant and King just lets it go.

    If anyone has a softer interview let me know but King is my #1 right now. (and Fox doesn’t count, that’s just back-slapping, not an interview at all)

  74. 74.

    Jay B.

    @Nick:

    Let the right wing get buried in this.

    The Administration is complicit in it, you idiot. THEY fired her. How in the fuck does the “right” get the blame here? “You fucked up. You listened to us.”

    How fucking stupid does ANYONE have to be to pick up anything Breitbart is involved in and think they “have to get out in front of it”, rather than “question its veracity”?

    Sherrod’s already been vindicated.

    That and $4 will get her a cup of coffee. What a grotesque attitude. Oh, well, at least she’s a martyr. Ho-hum.

    MORE:

    They wanted this story off the front page ASAP. I don’t blame them.

    How’s that working for you guys? Did it “knock it off the front pages” or “make it onto every single squak box newscast?”

    It’s an outrage because it’s WRONG for the government to help railroad an innocent woman out of a job to placate a lying racist scumbag. AND it’s fucking stupid to think to loudly reaffirm the stupid decision instead of repudiating it will somehow make the stupid decision go away.

    It’s utterly tone-deaf and politically deadly. No wonder you agree with it.

  75. 75.

    WereBear

    @Nick: Yes, I know they have a habit of throwing people to the wolves instead of defending them.

    THIS THIS THIS is exactly the behavior that Republicans ran on for decades: “You can’t trust Democrats with National Security! They are a bunch of wimps!”

    And stuff like this makes the Republicans look correct. That’s worth far more than a news cycle, and the White House just hands it to them.

    You, and them, are the ones looking at it the wrong way. You cannot appease the Wingers, and you cannot shut them up.

    But you can at least not play their game. Obama used to understand that.

  76. 76.

    frankdawg

    You guys want to talk about what a fucking douche Dimbart is – he is a wingnut so that as useful as talking about how hot August is in Georgia. I’d rather talk about what a bunch of spineless fucking pussies the Dems, particularly those in the White House, are. Its no surprise to anyone with a room temp IQ that Dimbart & co are lying sacks of shit. Rather than stand up to the bullies they beg them to take their lunch money & please use lube this time.

  77. 77.

    Jon

    I have a full transcript of the Sherrod tape. Money quote:

    I have come to realize that we have to work together. And it’s sad that we don’t have a room full of white and blacks here tonight. Because we have to overcome the divisions we have. We have to get to the point where – as Toni Morrison said – race exists but it doesn’t matter

    .

    It’s exactly the opposite of what the Breitbart tape alleged. Shame on Vilsack, the NAACP, and Obama for this garbage. Rehire her. Now.

  79. 79.

    Nick

    @Jay B.:

    you know, I give up with you fucking people.

    The Administration is complicit in it, you idiot. THEY fired her. How in the fuck does the “right” get the blame here? “You fucked up. You listened to us.”

    the right wing and the media ran with the story without fact checking for half a fucking day creaming their pants over a potential scandal before it was proven to be false. the WH was getting ahead of the narrative, something we always complain they DON’T do. The right doesn’t get a pass because they made the administration jump. They made EVERYBODY jump.

    How fucking stupid does ANYONE have to be to pick up anything Breitbart is involved in and think they “have to get out in front of it”, rather than “question its veracity”?

    Hello, have you turned on the fucking TV lately? Anything the right wing says is treated as gospel and often ignore facts. I don’t fault the WH for believing this story would be politically damaging whether it was true or not, because it’s often the case.

  80. 80.

    numbskull

    @Nick: No, it’s EXACTLY the right analogy. On what level does Breitbart have any credence? He has none. It is 100% Vilsack’s responsibility to lead responsibly. He is not allowed to be so stupid as to make a decision based on a Brietbart video. Even a child wouldn’t. It took serious observers about a nanosecond to figure this out.

  83. 83.

    sven

    Hey, who has the phone number for the White House switchboard?

    Gimme just a second…

  84. 84.

    Nick

    @numbskull:

    On what level does Breitbart have any credence? He has none.

    to you he doesn’t, but the media doesn’t care who he is or what his history is. If he wasn’t caught, they’d still be screaming SCANDAL

  85. 85.

    And Another Thing...

    @Nick: Man, I blame them. You always do your homework first. And given that the source for the clip was Breitbart and being pushed by Fox, you do due diligence. Vilsack/Admin was sloppy on the “doing the right thing” standard, and criminally politically amateur on the politics of it.

    Everybody makes mistakes, what I judge on is how people recognize their mistakes and repair the damage.

    Vilsack needs to apologize and re-hire her. He also needs to smack the deputy around who told Sherrod that “the White House” wants this.

    This needs to be fixed.

  86. 86.

    numbskull

    @Nick: “you know, I give up with you fucking people.”

    Nick, please believe and know two things:

    First, we are extremely happy for you to give up on us fucking people. Now please, for the love of God, go away. Go where you’re appreciated. Please. We’re begging. Go be happy…elsewhere.

    Second, you really, really aren’t as smart as you think you are. If you weren’t so fucking stupid, you’d understand that.

  87. 87.

    sven

    White House

    Comment: 202-456-1111
    Switchboard: 202-456-1414

    I’ll let you know which does what in a sec.

  88. 88.

    Nick

    @Jay B.:

    It’s an outrage because it’s WRONG for the government to help railroad an innocent woman out of a job to placate a lying racist scumbag.

    when she was forced to resign, no one knew this was a lie. The only people who thought he was a lying scumbag were those on the left who would still defend her if this was all true.

    It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback. Now put yourself in a position where a potentially politically devestating event just occured and you need to react immediately and you don’t know FOR A FACT that it’s false.

    Obama isn’t going to take a risk on a race issue, he has in the past, and it burned him.

  89. 89.

    Midnight Marauder

    @Nick:

    Lets say Breitbart hadn’t lied and she did make that statement? Because at first, the odds were in that direction. I’m not surprised it turned out to be false, but I wouldn’t have predicted it.

    Let’s say Breitbart hadn’t lied?! What the fuck else would we say then?! When does he NOT lie? The man is a fucking outright liar, through and through. You’re entire analysis is based on something that, literally, will never happen. Ever. There will never be a time when Andrew Breitbart is not lying about the Obama Administration.

    The odds were in that direction?! That’s the only direction this thing was ever headed! Are you trying to imply that there was even a remote chance that this wasn’t a hit job? Because, wow, that had got to be the most delusional thing I’ve seen all day.

    I mean, really? You wouldn’t have predicted a Breitbart piece of “journalism” to be anything other than a smear campaign?

    What fucking country have you been living in the last two years?

  90. 90.

    numbskull

    @Nick:

    If he wasn’t caught, they’d still be screaming SCANDAL

    But he WAS caught, and more than once before this. Therefore, it behooves the decision-makers to view anything from him with skepticism. In fact, THEY could have easily been the people who “caught” him THIS time if they’d actually done their research.

    But why are you still here? I thought you gave up on us fucking people?

  91. 91.

    Jay B.

    @Nick:

    You are so caught up in the stupid “media” narrative you have literally no idea how morally obtuse your defense of the Administration is. You really do think you and they are playing 11-dimensional chess when all they are doing is failing, miserably, at an easy call, hire the woman back.

    Anything the right wing says is treated as gospel and often ignore facts. I don’t fault the WH for believing this story would be politically damaging whether it was true or not, because it’s often the case.

    So, the right move is to railroad an innocent civil rights hero because of political expediency. Don’t fight back against the right — cave in, because it’ll get them off your back. This is your rationale. Genius!

    That’s the kind of fighting spirit the Democrats need to get up off the mat! Right or wrong doesn’t matter, it’s how many supporters you shank to impress the right that counts.

  92. 92.

    Nick

    @And Another Thing…:

    You always do your homework first

    in the world of 24/7 reactionary news, you don’t have time to do your homework first. We all know that, that’s why we always lose the narrative, because we let it develop while we’re “doing our homework”

    Sure. rehire her, apologize, whatever, but they made a politically smart move. If this turned out to be completely true, we’d be saying that.

  93. 93.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    Welp, they sure got me. I got it all wrong, now that I have seen the Maddow summary.

    I should have known better than to draw any conclusions before I had all the information. I was really busy today but that is no excuse. I jumped the gun.

  95. 95.

    Joseph Nobles

    And if I couldn’t get any angier about this story, I just let myself realize that the Breitbarts out there are yelling their fool heads off about how “reverse racism” motivates everything the Obama Administration is doing. Yet they just took a story about how a woman overcame her own “reverse racism” and used it to condemn her and the NAACP as “reverse racists.”

    What an evil, low, despicable man Andrew Breitbart is.

  96. 96.

    chopper

    @Mnemosyne:

    If Beck and Breitbart get into a real fight, Beck will win,

    Triangle man, triangle man
    Triangle man hates person man
    They have a fight, triangle wins
    Triangle man

  97. 97.

    Nick

    @Jay B.: Good God, a black President cannot take on a white-dominated media accusing a black woman of reverse racism in this country and win? How dumb do you need to be to see that?!?!

    Did you sleep through the Gates incident? The Rev. Wright fiasco?

    You are so caught up in the stupid “media” narrative

    you know what’s funny, when liberals are on the wrong side of public option, they’re caught up in it too.

  98. 98.

    Davis X. Machina

    The administration did what we liberals always tell them to do, get ahead of the story.

    Can’t win for losing…. Everything Carville told Clinton — get out there first, lance the boil, tell the story on your terms, don’t let the sun go down on their story, avoid even the appearance of a cover-up.

  99. 99.

    MattR

    @Nick:

    when she was forced to resign, no one knew this was a lie. The only people who thought he was a lying scumbag were those on the left who would still defend her if this was all true.

    You really are just spewing crap now. I am not sure if I am more disturbed by the fact that you believe that crap or the fact that you are so willing to state it aloud.

  101. 101.

    Malron aka eclecticbrotha

    @Nick:

    Lets say Breitbart hadn’t lied and….

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    Oh wait, you were serious?

    This was not the right thing to do. You investigate the allegations before you make a decision, not after. That’s why its turned into such a shitstorm.

  102. 102.

    Jay B.

    It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback. Now put yourself in a position where a potentially politically devestating event just occured and you need to react immediately and you don’t know FOR A FACT that it’s false.

    Monday morning quarterback? The second I found out about it this morning — before Vilsack made his utterly ignorant double down — I, and just about everyone else here, said “this is wrong. she’s getting shafted.”

    Secondly, all the Administration had to do was sputter something like “we’re taking a serious look at these charges and if they are correct we will take appropriate action.”

    By the afternoon their simple prudence would have been vindicated — or, if in some bizarre outcome, she really was a racist, they could have fired her then. It wouldn’t have even lasted a day.

    Panic, cravenness and stupidity — your “media-savvy” approach — led directly to this being a massive cock-up.

    Did you sleep through the Gates incident? The Rev. Wright fiasco?

    The Gates incident passed. The Rev. Wright fiasco happened before the election and he still won. More politically-savvy insights from the media guy.

  103. 103.

    Nick

    @Midnight Marauder:

    What fucking country have you been living in the last two years?

    the one where lies about the administration, it’s members and it’s policies often go unchecked and uncorrected by the media, even when challenged…that one.

    Yeah, I’m not shocked this turned out to be true, but if Breitbart is so well known for lying, then why did the media pick up on this story and run with it like it was the biggest news since Watergate?

    Because they smelled scandal and they didn’t care if it was true or not.

  105. 105.

    Corner Stone

    God damn Nick. I knew you were stupid, and after your Jew media comments the other day it was proven how stubborn you are.
    But shit. This is epic on both counts.

  106. 106.

    Nick

    @Malron aka eclecticbrotha:

    You investigate the allegations before you make a decision, not after. That’s why its turned into such a shitstorm

    No, no you don’t, not when it involves race, sorry. this isn’t even a shitstorm, it only is on the blogs.

  107. 107.

    Keith G

    @Nick:

    the WH was getting ahead of the narrative, something we always complain they DON’T do. The right doesn’t get a pass because they made the administration jump. They made EVERYBODY jump.

    Oh for fuck’s sake.

    We hired Obama to be a sane thoughtful leader and not to go off into some half-cocked emo retaliation binge like the Bush thugs.

    I do not want to be led by a putz who gets all *jumpy* when mean ol Bretfuck says something nasty. So I expect him to find some better angels and behave like a solid leader.

    Edited

  108. 108.

    Corner Stone

    @Jay B.:

    Secondly, all the Administration had to do was sputter something like “we’re taking a serious look at these charges and if they are correct we will take appropriate action.”
    __
    By the afternoon their simple prudence would have been vindicated—or, if in some bizarre outcome, she really was a racist, they could have fired her then. It wouldn’t have even lasted a day.

    And if it had been handled with even a modicum of cool unflappability that is the hallmark of this admin, Obama could’ve used it to pivot hard against some rhetorical bullshit.
    And squashed like bugs anyone who said treatment of racial issues was predicated on color.

  109. 109.

    Corner Stone

    @Nick:

    but if Breitbart is so well known for lying, then why did the media pick up on this story and run with it like it was the biggest news since Watergate?

    More to the point, why did Vilsack and the admin?

  110. 110.

    Nick

    @Keith G:

    We hired Obama to be a sane thoughtful leader and not to go off into some half-cocked emo retaliation binge like the Bush thugs

    Oh gee, could’ve fooled me

    I do not want to led by a putz who gets all jumpy when mean ol Bretfuck says something nasty. So I expect him fine some better angels and behave like a solid leader.

    This is the one issue where he gets burned when he does. I’m sorry, but a black President in a racist country doesn’t get to be a sane thoughtful leader when it comes to stuff like this. He’s been burned twice by this.

  111. 111.

    Hunter Gathers

    @numbskull: What does Breitbart’s credibility matter in this? This fight isn’t between the Teabaggers and Obama. It’s between the Media and Obama. It doesn’t matter whether or not the tape was edited. It was a tape of someone in the government (falsely) trashing white people. I heard about this (for the first time) at the salt mine today, and the reaction wasn’t pretty. I figured the tape was bullshit (Breitbart involved? it’s bullshit) but the people at work who were talking about it had no idea of Breitbart’s past, and took it as gospel. Most people don’t pay attention to this kind of shit like we do. The people I work with, all white, all undereducated, all willfully ignorant, took it as another example of ‘typical nigger bullshit from a nigger president and his nigger cronies, trying to keep white people down’. The only redeeming thing (to them, anyway) about the whole fiasco was that she was fired. The media did it’s job (trying to high-tech lynch Obama in anyway possible), and stuck another knife in (to go along with the knives known as Rev. Wright and Henry Louis Gates) Obama’s back. The Administration isn’t playing the right’s game. It’s playing the media’s game. And the media’s game, from now until Obama leaves office, is “Dance to our tune, you fucking nigger, or we’ll destroy you.” The Admin has no choice in this matter. You want to get angry at somebody, get angry at our culture, which dictates that the rules are different for black people. It amazes me how many people don’t understand that. They had to fire her, or the media would have gone apeshit. There are 3 political parties – Democrats, Republicans, and the MSM. The GOP and the MSM have forged a coalition with an explicit mission to destroy Obama. They both want him gone.

  112. 112.

    Nick

    @Corner Stone:

    More to the point, why did Vilsack and the admin?

    because they’re not gonna take a chance when it comes to race anymore. I don’t blame them, sorry.

  113. 113.

    numbskull

    @Malron aka eclecticbrotha:

    You investigate the allegations before you make a decision, not after. That’s why its turned into such a shitstorm.

    Exactly, and ESPECIALLY anything from Breitbart. You just look foolish if you believe anything from the guy. You become Flounder to Bluto saying “Ha! You fucked up! You trusted me!”

    So not only are you wrong, but worse politically, you look foolish. Now people can’t trust your judgment AND they laugh at you. Politically, you can’t do worse.

  114. 114.

    Jay B.

    @Nick:

    Fact is no one thinks this is an adminstration fuck up except a bunch of liberal bloggers

    Oh, Jesus. Sure, there are some liberal bloggers who really hate them. More don’t, or are skeptical. But trust me pal, when I say that all of them are the least of the Administration’s worries. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but while his liberal support is down to about 70%, he’s bleeding independents and his overall approval rating is around 45%. But yeah, liberal bloggers are the ones who think the administration is a fuck up.

  115. 115.

    numbskull

    @Hunter Gathers: So the way you get out in front of this is you show the fraud and go after those promulgating it. Are you arguing that folding as they did has worked well for Obama?

  117. 117.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    @Corner Stone:

    They might have made the same mistake I did … in a hurry, they may have thought that the first NAACP position validated the original take. Thus I got it all wrong.

  118. 118.

    Midnight Marauder

    @Nick:

    Yeah, I’m not shocked this turned out to be true, but if Breitbart is so well known for lying, then why did the media pick up on this story and run with it like it was the biggest news since Watergate?

    BECAUSE THEY ARE THE MEDIA! THAT’S WHAT THEY DO!

    How does that change the failure of any Obama Administration official to do due diligence on one of their biggest public enemies, Andrew “All I Do Is Slander Innocent, Hard-Working Black People” Breitbart? Because that’s the real issue here. A notorious lying hatemonger made is making the Obama Administration look like complete idiots.

    Now what are they going to do about it?

  119. 119.

    And Another Thing...

    @Nick: That’s a stupid and silly way to do business. You’d be effectively handing Breitbart & Fox the control of personnel decisions in your administration. They put up some edited video or text excerpts and beat the drum – for what a whole day – and your side fires the person without investigating. If you’re going to do that, just hand them the keys to the office right now.

    The Administration’s behavior looks and is both incompetent and weak.

    There’s a right wing outrage every day and you just can’t have an uninformed knee-jerk reaction.

    If this or any Admin is so weak kneed that they have to DO Something because of a potentially damaging political story without doing their homework, then we’re all in really big trouble.

    Basically, what you’re suggesting is McCain Management Theory… We are all Georgians now.

  120. 120.

    numbskull

    @Hunter Gathers:

    The only redeeming thing (to them, anyway) about the whole fiasco was that she was fired.

    And placating these people got Obama what exactly? Their vote?

    Moves like this lose votes among independents. The people you describe don’t matter politically because they ain’t gonna vote for Obama no how. Right?

    And what is Obama bleeding right now? Independent support.

  121. 121.

    Corner Stone

    @numbskull:

    Are you arguing that folding as they did has worked well for Obama?

    And given Beck a place to pivot from and seem reasonable on an issue he should have zero place to stand?
    I can’t believe people are arguing jumping three spots when Breitbart blows his whistle makes sense.

    What happens if Breitbart edits some footage of Malia talking shit about the USA? What’s the response then?

    The dude’s an unrepentant lying POS. For fuck’s sake.
    Sit down and ask for the full tape.

  122. 122.

    Nick

    @Jay B.:

    while his liberal support is down to about 70%

    Actually it’s at 88%, I think you lied about this last week and I had to correct you.

  123. 123.

    Jay B.

    @Hunter Gathers:

    The Admin has no choice in this matter.

    Dude, this is cult-talk. If the media is out to “destroy him”, then it wouldn’t matter what the Administration did, it would be wrong. So they might as well do the right thing. Moreover, CNN and MSNBC have covered the issue better than the Administration did.

    And even if your idiotic thesis is right — and they have “no choice” but to shank a civil rights hero to placate the media — what’s the fucking point then? They won’t win the media or the GOP anyway (if you really believe the shit about the “MSM”), so why not rally the troops?

  124. 124.

    demo woman

    @Hunter Gathers: It’s time that he fights back. I know that The Rock was just an invention of SNL but can’t a girl hope that the President issues a statement on this.
    During the video Shirley mentions that the election opened the door to dreams but dreams can only be achieved by hard work. She was proud of her work and poof, she was slapped down.

  125. 125.

    Davis X. Machina

    I doubt Obama — as opposed to “Obama” — heard about this much before we did.

    Sometimes, first base is open, you walk the #8 hitter to get to the pitcher, and the pitcher hits a home run. Life’s not fair.

    I am predisposed to judge them much more harshly on their response now, as opposed to their initial response.

  126. 126.

    Nick

    @numbskull:

    Moves like this lose votes among independents.

    WTF? Do you really think Independents are thinking “Oh, gee, I did support Obama, but they fired this poor woman!”

    Really?!?!?

    I would bet money that if polled tomorrow, most Independents think what she said was true.

    The people you describe don’t matter politically because they ain’t gonna vote for Obama no how. Right?

    Maybe not, but I know quite a few people who voted for him and now think he’s a racist because they fall for bullshit they see on cable news (it started with Gates), which leads to me…

    And what is Obama bleeding right now? Independent support.

    and you think this is because he won’t pick a fight with RACISTS? I mean, really?

  127. 127.

    Hunter Gathers

    @numbskull: It was an attempt to get it off the media radar and focus on GOP obstruction. It didn’t work because Breitbart’s story fell apart. Now, this will suck up the media oxygen for the rest of the week. Which will bury the signing of the financial reform bill. Stuff dealing with race is the biggest media time suck known to man. This is a true no-win situation for Obama. He was fucked either way. The truth no longer matters.

  129. 129.

    Nick

    @demo woman: He’s fought back on this issue before, and he lost. He can’t fight back especially when it comes to racial issues, because he’s black. That’s just reality, sorry.

  130. 130.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    The truth no longer matters.

    That is what I thought earlier.

    However, I have changed my mind. What I think now is that what we do now is what matters. And what we should do now is give the woman her job back.

  131. 131.

    Nick

    @Keith G:

    How has he been burned in previous actions?

    Rev. Wright. I distinctly remember the blogs going into panic mode because he wasn’t responded/tossing Wright aside fast enough. Even after what Wright said was proven to be overblown, the media still pushed him and attacked him and forced him to the point where he had to give a speech on race in Philadelphia and throw Wright under the bus.

    Henry Louis Gates. He said the truth, the media bashed him, his approval rating among whites dropped five points in like a week, and he was forced to hold a “beer summit” that every racist I know (some of whom voted for him) still mock him over.

  132. 132.

    Corner Stone

    @Davis X. Machina:

    I am predisposed to judge them much more harshly on their response now, as opposed to their initial response.

    I agree with you in that we just don’t know how high the briefing went on this.
    And as I’ve said, I don’t expect Obama to answer the phone for every call made at the WH.
    But I have to be a little sceptical that the call was made without anyone wondering who it really was they were firing, and at least asking her to speak her piece.
    The killer is Vilsack doubling down on it. Now it’s a tight spot for the WH to really take any action on.

  133. 133.

    eemom

    1. Of course, the buck admittedly stops where it’s supposed to in this administration, but I really doubt Obama personally had anything to do with this clusterfuck.

    2. Obama DID call out the Gates thing at the time — said something to the effect that the police fucked up.

    3. Obama handled the Rev. Wright thing both masterfully, and also sincerely, IMO.

    Yo Nick, take a break. You seem to be a well-intentioned guy, but you’ve got a bad case of the Joe Bidens.

  134. 134.

    demo woman

    According to a new post, the White House is reviewing the case and will issue a statement in the morning. Dennis is upstairs.

  135. 135.

    frankdawg

    Nick – STFU & GTFA

    I don’t want morans like you near my side of any argument. Know when you are beaten

  136. 136.

    numbskull

    @Nick: Nick, I can’t believe you still care enough to reply to one of us fucking people. Thank master, thank you!

    This whole thing makes the Obama administration look weak and stupid. They are REACTING to frauds by throwing their own people under the bus. THAT is all that independents will take from this. Weakness. THAT is losing on every level, on the news cycle and on the cumulative narrative.

    Nick, you’re basically arguing for failure. Put the shovel down, the hole is deep enough.

  137. 137.

    sven

    The one positive in this entire situation is that thanks to the internet we’ve all now been able to see Ms. Sherrod’s speech for ourselves. There has never been a news show that would have shown all 45-minutes in its entirety.

    Nothing could have vindicated her as simply or effectively as her own words.

  138. 138.

    Jay B.

    More savvy:

    WTF? Do you really think Independents are thinking “Oh, gee, I did support Obama, but they fired this poor woman!”

    Of course. They see the administration pile on to attack an innocent woman, or they see an administration talking out of both sides of their mouth to do nothing after they canned her or they see him fold like a cheap suit to try and placate the party they totally loathe.

    It’s all simple really, Nick. Your strategy, the one the Administration signed off on, will either be politically popular or it won’t. The proof will come soon enough. I think it makes them look weak and easily pushed around (something I’ve already thought) by conservatives. You think instantly capitulating was the smart move.

  139. 139.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    @Corner Stone:

    True but Obama is a mensch. He can walk this back, now that we know it’s the right thing to do. The right will catcall but he will win the respect of everyone else.

  140. 140.

    Emma

    Beltane: Me neither!

    The thing I resent the most about these folks is their ability to turn me into a nasty, spiteful, screeching harpy.

  141. 141.

    Nick

    @Jay B.: Because you cut off a line of attack;

    “Why is the Obama administration still employing this racist!?!?!?!?!”

  142. 142.

    And Another Thing...

    @Nick: BS… You do have time to deal with the problem. You put her on administrative leave and do an investigation. That shows you take the issue seriously and you are competent and will deal fairly.

  145. 145.

    Nick

    @eemom:

    Obama DID call out the Gates thing at the time—said something to the effect that the police fucked up.

    and it damaged him politically and nearly killed HCR.

  146. 146.

    Corner Stone

    @LikeableInMyOwnWay:

    True but Obama is a mensch. He can walk this back, now that we know it’s the right thing to do. The right will catcall but he will win the respect of everyone else.

    I also believe Obama has the skill and aplomb to make this come out ok, if he chooses to.
    IMO, I do not believe hiring her back is the right thing to do, even though I’m sure it could be handled graciously on both ends.
    ISTM, something more could be done. Maybe a spot on a new committee for the issues she feels deeply about until her retirement.
    I’m sure there’s something powerful she could contribute to, even though i may not be aware of it right now.

  147. 147.

    sven

    Hey El Cid,

    Is TPMemo reading your mind?

    They have CNN’s Breitbart headline toplined at the moment…

  148. 148.

    Nick

    @And Another Thing…:

    You do have time to deal with the problem. You put her on administrative leave and do an investigation.

    Keeping the story alive for days and weeks when you’re scoring political successes you want to sell.

    The problem here is clearly we have a government by media and no one wants to accept it.

  149. 149.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Nick:

    Sure. rehire her, apologize, whatever, but they made a politically smart move. If this turned out to be completely true, we’d be saying that.

    Would you be as understanding if they had fucked over your life based upon a bunch of lies from Andrew Breitbart and Fox News? Would you say “Well, you guys fucked me over based upon lies and bullshit, but it was politically smart?”. I don’t think so, oh, and exactly how politically smart was this anyways? The right wing noise machine said “shit” and the Obama administration squatted in the corner and said “how many bags full? sir?”. Yeah, looking like a bunch of punks and bitches sure is politically smart.

  150. 150.

    SIA

    Rachel Maddow did a great segment on this. I don’t see how the administration can do anything other than abjectly apologize and reinstate her. Anything less is cowardice and counter-productive and is going to suck the morale out of a lot of people.

    This is a real Cluster Fuck resulting from shrinking cahones on the part of Dem officials.

    /embarrassed O-Bot

  152. 152.

    Nick

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    Would you be as understanding if they had fucked over your life based upon a bunch of lies from Andrew Breitbart and Fox News? Would you say “Well, you guys fucked me over based upon lies and bullshit, but it was politically smart?”. I don’t think so, oh, and exactly how politically smart was this anyways? The right wing noise machine said “shit” and the Obama administration squatted in the corner and said “how many bags full? sir?”. Yeah, looking like a bunch of punks and bitches sure is politically smart.

    Honestly, if put in her position, I’d do what Van Jones did. offer my resignation saying that I don’t want to be a distraction to the administration’s priorities and then go on a full force attack against an irresponsible media and right wing narratives.

    Fact of the matter is, whether we like it or not, the administration cannot fight back against charges of reverse racism. They just can’t. It’s a black leader’s lot in life. They play by different rules.

  153. 153.

    Wile E. Quixote

    You know Nick, I wish that I could figure out a way to fuck your life over the way Shirley Sherrod’s life has been fucked over. Not because I think you’d learn anything from the experience, you’re too deeply stupid and immoral for that, but just because I enjoy seeing assholes like you suffer.

  154. 154.

    numbskull

    @Nick: Man, you have a very strange memory. Gatesgate nearly killed HCR? I’ll agree it hurt him politically, but mainly because he sat down with both guys AS THOUGH one of them wasn’t clearly in the wrong. That looks weak. It was politically naive and just plain stupid. It was stupid to get into something that was local (and the Sherrod thing is NOT local; it’s federal). And it was stupid to pretend that errors were made all ’round and can’t we all just get along. THOSE were what hurt him.

    But more to the point, Gatesgate is not analogous to Sherrod on any level other than the Obama administration finding a new and interesting way to look weak. Thinking that they are analogous because race is involved is like thinking bacteria and basketballs are analogous. They’re both spherical, but…

  155. 155.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Nick:

    Yeah, and that did a whole a lot of good for Van Jones, didn’t it? Oh, and the media sure did learn a lesson from that, didn’t they? Yeah, they shaped right up after the Van Jones affair and after the ACORN tapes were shown to be bullshit.

  156. 156.

    Nick

    @numbskull:

    I’ll agree it hurt him politically, but mainly because he sat down with both guys AS THOUGH one of them wasn’t clearly in the wrong. That looks weak.

    Wow…no. It damanged him poltiically BEFORE that. It was the damage that forced him to do that. He had to mend fences with the charges of reverse racism.

    I can’t believe how out of touch the left really is. I’m astonished really.

  157. 157.

    Nick

    @Wile E. Quixote: the media is never going to shape up until it’s destroyed. Van Jones didn’t really follow through on his attacks on the media. He just sorta went off and did his own thing.

    But I’ve been attacking then media for years now and my fight has fallen on deaf ears here and elsewhere.

    It’s pretty clear that the left thinks the media is irrelevant or that it’s a problem Obama can deal with himself if he just yells a little.

    I don’t know what world they’re living in, but it’s not this one.

  159. 159.

    And Another Thing...

    @Nick: Fox and the right wing echo machine are going to manufacture as many controversies as possible. Your proposals mean letting the right set the agenda and effectively decide who get’s fired. It’s a stupid way to do business. You’re effectively handing the bad guys scalps.

    In the specific case at hand, the investigation would have taken a couple of days.

    The Admin needs to consider the effect on remaining employees. Fox gets on your case and the Admin throws you overboard within what 24 hours. Wow, that’s motivating.

    I repeat, you’re pushing the McCain Management Strategy. Shoot your mouth off before you have the facts.

  160. 160.

    Keith G

    @Nick: Well we have differing definitions of “burned”.

    As was mentioned above, the Wright case was mostly a win for Obama. It was drawn out, in part through the actions of Wright himself. IMHO, Obama’s initial ambiguity made it worse than it needed to be.

    As far as the Gates cock-up, I could not believe he answered that question. As I watched it unfold, I was cringing. It was an ill-disciplined, silly, even arrogant choice. Politicians playing at that level need to be in total control of the message. That he couldn’t sense what he was stepping into, bespoke a surprising amateurism.

    So, no. He wasn’t burned (let down, deceived, stabbed in the back, dumped on) as much as he just has mishandled some rather forthright challenges.

  161. 161.

    timb

    @mantis: Thanks for your work; I was able to confirm your original stuff via Google. I was talking to lefties about this last night when everyone was still condemning her. You are the bomb, mantis

  164. 164.

    Nick

    @And Another Thing…: Fox wasn’t the only one running with this this morning, CNN and MSNBC were both running with it too… as a matter of fact, even some of the blogs believed it.

    Fact is, the only reason the administration is getting heat on this from the left is because it turned out to be wrong and the bloggers want to trumpet that they were right for once.

    The administration may look weak in the eyes who think he should spend his entire time fighting the right 24/7, but to everyone else, it looks like he prepared for the worst.

    If she gets her job back, or ends up somewhere else, that will prove that. They were prepared for the worst, it’s what politicians do.

  166. 166.

    numbskull

    @Nick:

    Wow…no. It damanged him poltiically BEFORE that. It was the damage that forced him to do that. He had to mend fences with the charges of reverse racism.
    I can’t believe how out of touch the left really is. I’m astonished really.

    Again, thanks for coming back for more. I can’t believe how privileged we fucking people are that you gave up but came back.

    Nick, you’ve lost track of the polling. The real bleeding came after he had his sit-down with policeman and Gates over the beer, not before. The before-damage didn’t “force” Obama to do anything. Obama simply didn’t handle that situation well and came out looking silly. Worse than being wrong.

  167. 167.

    Hunter Gathers

    @Nick: They don’t get it. And they never will. The rules are different. They just don’t understand. Now this – Firing of USDA official highlights larger political problems involving race

    money quote –

    Sherrod laid some of the blame on the organization that had sponsored her speech. The NAACP, she told CNN, is “the reason this happened. They got into a fight with the tea party, and this all came out as a result of it.”

    Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

    This will be the topic of all conversation in DC for weeks.

    Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

  169. 169.

    Corner Stone

    @Nick:

    Fact is, the only reason the administration is getting heat on this from the left is because it turned out to be wrong and the bloggers want to trumpet that they were right for once.

    Ok, so what’s your explanation for Glenn Beck blasting the WH for firing her?
    More lefty blogger sanctimony?

  170. 170.

    numbskull

    @Hunter Gathers:

    They don’t get it. And they never will. The rules are different. They just don’t understand.

    Oh Mighty Hunter, please let us in on the secrets of the Universe! In my great misery and ignorance, I beg for your pearls of wisdom! Please, lay it on us, baby!

  171. 171.

    Corner Stone

    @Hunter Gathers:

    They don’t get it. And they never will. The rules are different. They just don’t understand.

    We may disagree about things, and that’s cool.
    But may I humbly suggest you disagree with the opinions here on your own terms, and not cite Nick as support?
    I’d much rather see you debate your viewpoint than be saddled alongside someone like Nick who is really disingenuous on this issue.
    That’s just IMO. Take it for what you will.

  172. 172.

    Corner Stone

    @And Another Thing…:

    The Admin needs to consider the effect on remaining employees. Fox gets on your case and the Admin throws you overboard within what 24 hours. Wow, that’s motivating.

    But that’s what has happened in every instance so far.
    Someone yells, “Boo!” and the admin has divorced itself pretty quickly.

  176. 176.

    And Another Thing...

    @Nick: Well, in my world being wrong both in process and outcome is a reason to be taking heat.

    You say: The administration may look weak in the eyes who think he should spend his entire time fighting the right 24/7, but to everyone else, it looks like he prepared for the worst.

    Gee I thought I was the one saying he SHOULDN’T spend his entire time fighting the right 24/7,

    Yeah, pre-emptive career executions. Shoot first and then figure it out at the autopsy.

    Sheesh.

  177. 177.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    @timb:

    Your money order and carwash coupons are on the way.

    Meanwhile, I see a great opportunity for us Obots here.

    Barack makes another Big Speech on Race. He excoriates Fox and Breitbart for trying to divide Americans, he welcomes Sherrod back into the fold, and then he names Arizona as the official site of the new Winter White House for the first family.

    Result: We hold onto our 5 Dem House seats here, Breitbart is made a laughingstock, Fox is discredited, Vilsack apologizes, the NAACP renames itself to NAABP finally, and Mark Williams campaigns for Harry Reid.

    Ben Jealous gets his own MSNBC show. The Dems hold the House, we repeal the Bush tax cuts to the rich, and ….

    ….they all live happily ever after!

  178. 178.

    And Another Thing...

    @Corner Stone: I absolutely agree with your take on this. The Administration’s doing a lot of institutional damage.

    Watching the Bush administration was instructive, Do Whatever the F You Want just tough it out.

    Was it Yogi Berra who famously said “Can’t anybody here play this game.?”

    Well, 18 months into this Obama Admin looks pretty damn inept politically. If Nancy Pelosi weren’t so wonderfully tough, the Admin would have next to nothing in accomplishments.

  180. 180.

    Corner Stone

    @And Another Thing…:

    If Nancy Pelosi weren’t so wonderfully tough, the Admin would have next to nothing in accomplishments.

    Honestly? I’m very sure we have yet to appreciate Nancy Pelosi for what she has meant, done and accomplished.
    I hope to the sweet FSM that one day an actual, more~or~less historical compendium is published so we can see exactly what she has meant to society and this country.
    Her timeline isn’t written yet, and certainly she has her flaws, but damn I bet that will be one good freakin read in 20 years.

  181. 181.

    El Cid

    How is it getting ahead of the story if you don’t know the story? Does someone hand you a story and you get ahead of it? How do you know the difference between being ahead of and behind a story? Does it matter what the story is? Does it matter who’s telling the story? Is the notion of ‘the story’ something dealing with empirical reality, or is it more of a metaphorical, existential notion of ‘the story’ which exists beyond and in spite of our own existence?

  182. 182.

    Shalimar

    @Nick:

    Fact is, the only reason the administration is getting heat on this from the left is because it turned out to be wrong and the bloggers want to trumpet that they were right for once.

    The administration fucked up someone’s life based on lies. They need to correct their mistake. Righting wrongs is a good reason to give someone heat. Your “only reason” is some really twisted shit.

  183. 183.

    El Cid

    I don’t know how I transformed from being an ordinary person with thoughts in my head to ‘a blogger’. I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure I thought in much the same ways as when there wasn’t an internet, at least not one that people I knew used.

    Strangely, I still think it wrong to screw someone out of a job in a rushed and uninformed and unexamined panic because of blatantly false charges, particularly charges made by a serial liar producing fraudulent propaganda against African American leaders and organizations, and particularly when those fraudulent charges are made against a woman whose background in actual civil, voting, and economic justice rights organizing for African Americans and the rural poor is much, much thicker and deeper than most any other national leaders today.

  184. 184.

    Hunter Gathers

    @Corner Stone:

    But may I humbly suggest you disagree with the opinions here on your own terms, and not cite Nick as support?

    OK, here goes. I have seen, with my own two eyes, how the rules are different for black people. I have several friends that are African-American. On more than one occasion, while out driving, just going to the store, in the burbs of Chicago, the car I was in while my friend was driving was pulled over. We weren’t even speeding. I’ve been pulled over more than a few times by myself. I have never, ever, been subjected to the type of harassment that my friend has on the two occasions that I can think of off the top of my head. I (when I was driving by myself or with my white friends) have never been told to place my hands on the steering wheel, asked if I was armed, asked if the car I was driving was stolen, asked if I had any drugs on me, told I was lying about my destination, and forced to submit to a sobriety test when one wasn’t warranted. I have seen my friend harrassed like that twice. I didn’t say anything at the time because you don’t mouth off to the cops in situations like that. That’s how people get tased or shot.

    Ever have someone in a place of business follow you like you were going to steal something? Like you we going to rob the place? Been there, seen that. Ever told the honest to goodness truth to one of your teachers about a fight and be told to your face that you’re ‘just covering for him because he’s black’? Ever catch your boss calling the black co-manager a nigger behind his back and threatening to have you fired if you reported him?

    Racism exists. It’s as deep as it ever has been. It was codified into our constitution at the nation’s birth. It’s not as blatant as it was, say 40 years ago, but it’s still there. Not to stereotype, but if you’re over the age of 50 and white, odds are you are either scared of or are hateful towards black people. It’s the anger/fear that drives the TeaBaggers/Confederate Party.

    It’s why Obama has to tread very lightly on the subject of race. Yes, the Philly speech was a thing of beauty, and it was one of the reasons that he won, but he was a candidate then, and now as POTUS, he can’t talk about race whatsoever. Race isn’t what the (for now) white majority want to hear about. They want to hear jobs, deficits, terrorism, the things that the POTUS has to deal with on a day to day basis. If he were to spend one minute talking about race (or calling the Tea Party movement racist, which would be beyond fucking stupid, the BS would never end), all the political oxygen he needs to fight the stupididy of the GOP, the MSM and his own fucking party would be sucked up. Race is a guaranteed MSM time suck.

    As it pertains to the media being out to get him (and they are), what does the media share with the TeaBaggers? Demographics. The people who run and work in the MSM are for the most part older, affluent white males. They sympathize with the TeaBaggers because they are TeaBaggers.

    Way back, during my NewsRadio days, during the height of the Monica fiasco, I busted my hump working a story about a racist cop who had a nasty habit of shooting black males during traffic stops (I was living in Kentucky at the time), and his dashboard tapes kept disappearing. The day one of his fellow officers finally turned him in, my boss spiked the story. He wouldn’t let me run it at all, and wanted me to run my entire 15 minute newscast on Clinton and Lewinski. Of course, I objected, and my boss looked me in the eye, and uttered “Son, nobody gives a shit about dead fucking niggers. Now run the story I tell you too or I’ll shitcan your ass.” Needless to say, I no longer work in radio.

    That day sticks in my mind whenever I read a lot of the news these days. Perhaps it has jaded me a bit, but I can’t help but see the underlying racism present in the MSM. And anytime Obama steps into the realm of race relations, it comes to the forefront. Weeks of coverage of the Henry Louis Gates incident. Talking heads going on and on about his ‘otherness’. Crap like that drives narratives. When the media decides it wants a politician’s head on a platter, they go out of their way to get their pelt. See Clinton, Bill. And they want Obama gone in the worst way. Why else would they bend over backwards for GOP/TeaBagger talking points? They know they are bullshit, but saying outrageous things about black people gets eyeballs and makes them feel better about their fear of the ‘other’ (now including Muslims and hispanics).

    I may be wrong, but our culture is still in many ways segregated. The rules are different for those that aren’t white males. I’m not exactly happy with the administrations actions on this whole fiasco, but I don’t blame them for wanting it to go away. Any time race is the forefront in the world of politics, minorities loose. That’s just the way I see it. I have yet to see anything that would convince me otherwise.

    Christ on a cracker, that was long.

  185. 185.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Nick:

    @Wile E. Quixote: the media is never going to shape up until it’s destroyed. Van Jones didn’t really follow through on his attacks on the media. He just sorta went off and did his own thing.

    You know Nick, you’re as full of shit as Andrew Breitbart is. You condemn the media for being a bunch of shitheads who aren’t going to give the administration a fair shake and then claim that Van Jones could have done something to go after them after they forced him out of his job. Yeah, tell me Nick, who was going to give him airtime? Fox News?

    But I’ve been attacking then media for years now and my fight has fallen on deaf ears here and elsewhere.

    Yeah, how your ‘attack’ strategy of bending over, grabbing your ankles and screaming ‘fuck me like the chickenshit punk-ass bitch that I am and when you’re done I’ll punish you by sucking your cock clean’ working out for you? You’re a punk and a coward Nick, the word “cravenly” doesn’t even begin to describe you.

  186. 186.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Nick:

    No Nick, I’m not tolerant of craven, lying scumbags like you and want bad things to happen to them. You’re a coward and a loser, a pathetic shit of a Villager wannabee.

  187. 187.

    Corner Stone

    @Hunter Gathers: I’ve never been black, but I have been poor. And I lived in an environment where almost all of that happened to me.
    I was driving out of a neighborhood one late evening and had 3 cruisers and their sergeant stop me, cuff me and my Hispanic friend, search us and my car and then basically tell us if they saw us out again that night we weren’t making it home again. I was shot at more times than I could count before I graduated high school. And pulled out of places and cuffed more times than I deserved.
    And many, many more things I could relate if you were buying rounds.
    But that’s neither here nor there. I’m white and don’t know what it’s like to walk into a professional environment and be the only black professional there (besides office services staff). Or any of the million things I’ll never know.
    I’m not pretending to know anything like that.
    IMO, this case should not have been about race. And I don’t think it had to be.
    Four hours or less of research and context and this could have all been headed off.
    Maybe I’m naive but I want people in charge to be in charge. And not tell me someone else is in charge.

  188. 188.

    sven

    @Hunter Gathers: I posted the same quote in another thread.

    Sherrod laid some of the blame on the organization that had sponsored her speech. The NAACP, she told CNN, is “the reason this happened. They got into a fight with the tea party, and this all came out as a result of it.”

    The Post is clearly (intentionally?) distorting Sherrod’s actual quote. Do you think Sherrod ‘blames’ the NAACP for what happened to her?
    Is anyone else to blame? (Breitbart, the media) The Post doesn’t say.

    Personally, I blame Philo T. Farnsworth! If he hadn’t invented the television this never would have happened.

    The post is making a moral judgment Sherrod clearly doesn’t intend.

  189. 189.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Shalimar:

    The administration fucked up someone’s life based on lies. They need to correct their mistake. Righting wrongs is a good reason to give someone heat. Your “only reason” is some really twisted shit.

    It’s because Nick, despite his claims of fighting the media for years, is just another Villager wannabee. Give him a column at the Washington Post or a CNN gig like Erick Erickson’s and his ‘fight’ would be over.

  190. 190.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Nick:

    Yeah, I can just see Nick’s brilliant advice if Andrew Breitbart ever showed up with a faked up ‘whitey’ tape. “Sure, Breitbart is full of shit and the tape is completely fake Mr. President, but you should dump Michelle and start dating white women. Otherwise the media is going to be asking why you’re still married to this racist.”
    <p.

  191. 191.

    Mark S.

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    Yeah, how your ‘attack’ strategy of bending over, grabbing your ankles and screaming ‘fuck me like the chickenshit punk-ass bitch that I am and when you’re done I’ll punish you by sucking your cock clean’ working out for you?

    Ladies and gentlemen, the new Champion of the Internets!

  192. 192.

    Hunter Gathers

    @Corner Stone:

    IMO, this case should not have been about race. And I don’t think it had to be.

    But is, at least now. People need to chill out for a moment, and see how this plays out. The full tape just came out, and it’s not like Sherrod was banished to the Phantom Zone.

    @sven:

    The post is making a moral judgment Sherrod clearly doesn’t intend.

    That’s why I wrote ‘fuck’ so many times. The MSM does this every time shit like this happens. It’s frustrating as hell.

  193. 193.

    Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos

    You gotta love the dumbfucks going on about how the Obama admin just had to do things 100% exactly the way it did, because anything else would have been a media disaster, without noticing that OH SHIT it is a fucking media disaster only now not only do they take the same heat from racist whites as they would if they’d stood their ground, they also get heat from indies and the left for throwing another one under the bus. OBVIOUSLY IT HAD TO BE THIS WAY DURRRRR

    I bet firing a civil rights legend over blatant lies will really help get the base fired up for November! It’s not like midterm elections are won and lost based on base turnout or anything, though. The Dems really should focus on peeling another percentage or so from the old white racists this fall, fuck the silly left.

  194. 194.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hunter Gathers:

    People need to chill out for a moment, and see how this plays out. The full tape just came out, and it’s not like Sherrod was banished to the Phantom Zone.

    Yep. It’s barely 24 hours since Sherrod was fired and we already have pretty major signs of a meltdown … on the right. Beck and Breitbart are butting heads over this story.

    Breitbart overreached and he fucked with the wrong civil rights worker. I’m really starting to enjoy this.

  195. 195.

    Shaun

    Shit, a cop shoots a handcuffed man in the back and he gets put on administrative leave – he doesn’t get fired without an investigation.

  197. 197.

    FlipYrWhig

    1. Sherrod got hosed.
    2. This has been a news story for one day. Complaining that the response to late developments has been too slow seems, um, hasty?
    3. I understand the impulse to throw a wet blanket over the original story of the tape, because Fox has been running many incarnations of the same “black government looks out for its own, doesn’t care about white people” story for months, and punishing a “black racist” may have seemed like a good idea to knock down the Black Panther story, which is also at its core — among white racists — a fable about a black AG ignoring white complaints. Now that it’s obviously _not_ a story about a “black racist,” that initial handling backfired. (For the likelihood of that, see 5.)
    4. I think another reason why the NAACP acted as it did is that the tape also includes the black audience being knowing and presumably sympathetic of Sherrod’s comment about how she didn’t feel inclined to go the extra mile. Sherrod needs that reaction so that she can flip it around and make her larger point about how there’s also a class struggle, not only a race struggle. I have to think that’s part of the reason _they_ wanted to knock it down: not only the speaker, but the crowd reaction.
    5. Why does anyone believe Andrew Breitbart? Why does his bullshit produce immediate action? Yo, Democrats, stop being afraid of that dickbag.

  198. 198.

    Peter

    @Hunter Gathers: HG, I understand your point and I’m certainly not going to disagree with your main assertions (that racism exists, that the ‘rules’ are different for non-white males, and that it’s very difficult – I wouldn’t say impossible, but VERY DIFFICULT – for a black president to win an argument about race in a white-dominated media culture). But nobody is arguing that. At the very least, it’s not the main of the discussion.

    If you summarily fire someone for an offense they turn out to not have committed, without bothering to investigate at all, especially when you really should have known that the source you got this story from was untrustworthy, you have just failed in your duties as that person’s employer. Full stop.

    The administration in this case chose to pursue the politically expedient course instead of the correct one, and they got burned for it. It was a fuckup no matter how you dissect it. The only thing for it at this point is an apology (preferably public), and then either offering her her job back, or offering her a better one. The issue will likely go away after that, but even if it doesn’t, what else should they do? Just leave the issue unresolved and give Beck a talking point for the next six months?

  199. 199.

    FreeAtLast

    Very very very late to this thread, so forgive me if my comment is redundant. Just want to add that CJ has been super great on the climate change issue as well.

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