When you’re in three holes, bring a lot of shovels (h/t Jim):
[L]ast night, the right-wing blogger who instigated this faux controversy questioned the white farmers’ honesty and repeated his false racist charges. In interviews with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and CNN, the Iron City, GA couple Roger and Eloise Spooner described Sherrod as a “friend for life” and a “good person” who helped save their farm. Speaking with CNN’s John King, right-wing provocateur Andrew Breitbart challenged Eloise Spooner’s “purported” story, accusing King of trusting Sherrod “that the ‘farmer’s wife’ is the farmer’s wife”:You tell me as a reporter how CNN put on a person today who purported to be the farmer’s wife? What did you do to find out whether or not that was the actual farmer’s wife? I mean, if you’re going to accuse me of a falsehood, tell me where you’ve confirmed that had this incident happened 24 years ago. […]
You’re going off of her word that the farmer’s wife is the farmer’s wife?
Fortunately, Hot Air is already backing away from this story so we may not find out whether or not these farmers have granite countertops.
me
Even Pat Buchanan won’t defend Breitbart. I’m starting to think he’s blown any credibility he ever had. Even his allies won’t trust him implicitly again.
Jennifer
The only proper response to that bit of Breitbart bullshit would be to say, “hey, you know what – even if that wasn’t the farmer’s wife, the full context of Mrs. Sherrod’s speech to the NAACP proves she’s the opposite of what you portrayed her to be by heavily editing the tape. You don’t get to come on here and question anyone else’s journalistic ethics after getting caught red-handed in a stunt like that.”
Zifnab
The wingnuts got busted and immediately doubled down by going into attack mode? This is unprecedented!
Don’t give up Andrew. Clearly, John King fabricated these people with CNN’s holographic generator technology. We support you. Keep flinging that poo.
SpotWeld
In my home town we have a nut who buys time on the local-access cable to run his 9/11 “thruth” show.
I wince a little everytime I see his flies around town. By accident I caught a few minutes of the show when flipping around channels. (Think “Loose Change” but even dumber)
That guy is exactly where he should be. Expressing his free speach, but religated to the level of media where he has no authority and can be easily ignored.
Why isn’t Andrew Breitbart , Eric Erickson, O’Keefe religated to the same level. Why do they get broadcaste news and morning show interviews.. why do they have any credibility at all?
They are cranks and nuts jobs, they are noisemongers with no apparent ethics. They have been staining everyone who repeats thier words…
Why are they still getting media attention?
shortstop
Absolutely, and nicely worded.
Fortunately, even without checking the transcript, I know King was up to the challenge.
SpotWeld
Sorry about the rant..
Comrade Mary
You do know where you are, right?
Nice rant. Carry on.
Stooleo
@me:
Word.
Andrew Breitbart and anyone using his content should be dismissed at once.
rufflesinc
It’s just like when Cheney shot his buddy in the face and his buddy apologized for Cheney’s embarrassment!
(no not really, but Cheney shot a guy in the face!)
nevsky42
I can’t help but think of the end of The Insider, where the victim of a vicious smear campaign by tobacco companies is vindicated when the truth comes out and is reported. Of course, that film was made way back in 1999, it seems like such a quaint notion now.
Bullsmith
I love it. Bright-tard doesn’t have to account for his fraudulently edited tape, but CNN has to prove that the people he’s lying about are who they say they are. This guy puts the gold into double standard.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@SpotWeld: Because the media is controlled by the right. Look at all the owners. The “liberal media” thing has always been a crock of shit.
bcinaz
You know who else loves just loves to start a fight using the power of video and the internet?
Al Qaeda, mother effers!
MattF
Oh, and Beck attacks the administration for firing Sherrod “without due process.”
Jude
Fucking lying scumbag sack of shit.
He really is a shining example of postmodernism, though.
D.N. Nation
Anyone notice from these clips that Breitbart has gained about 25 pounds recently?
Doesn’t have much to do with much, I suppose. Just that I noticed a few wingnuts (Glenn Reynolds and Thomas Sowell being the ones I remember most) putting on the pounds during Election ’08. Impotent rage is a health-destroying thing, I guess.
MarkJ
Another appropriate response would be to ask Andrew why he never confirms the veracity of his video exposes before he releases them. Why does CNN have to verify everything to the Nth degree whereas he is allowed to create false impressions by editing out relevant info?
slag
@Zifnab:
Birds gotta fly; wingnuts gotta fling.
Seitz
Hilarious. Breitbart is skeptical that the farmer’s wife is indeed who she says she is. They accuse these people of being plants. Can’t ever take anything at face value without verifying independently, ya know!
But someone sends him an obviously edited tape, and he has no problem running with it. No need to verify its authenticity.
Sherrod needs to sue this motherfucker for all he’s worth.
demo woman
Breitbart in his rant forgets to mention that Shirley worked for a non-profit which was formed to help the poor. For him to continue defaming her is ridiculous. What was she suppose to do, help Monsanto?
cleek
Frum:
Breitbart is the conservative Dan Rather.
let that sink in.
JGabriel
This is rich, on Breitbart, from the The Corner:
— Jonah Goldberg, author Liberal Fascism
.
Kryptik
On an OT note…really, is there any way that you guys are able to do anything about that abhorrent ‘Do HOMOSEXUALS deserve special rights?! ‘ ad currently in circulation around the site? Or is that your guys ad provider being a bunch of assholes again? (I ask, because Political Animal has been getting that same awful, offensive ad around too)
Brachiator
@SpotWeld:
Rave on!
@nevsky42:
I’m also reminded of 1981’s Absence of Malice. IMDB’s tagline of the film.
What galls me the most about this crap is not just the propaganda wars and political games that the right is playing, but that they so gleefully fuck over people’s lives in the process. They should all burn in hell.
arguingwithsignposts
Also on topic, David Frum is shrill.
kommrade reproductive vigor
In other words, provide full details on this woman’s identity and existence and current location so we can act shocked, I say SHOCKED when someone sets fire to her trash cans.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@demo woman: Yes.
SA2SQ vol. XVII
anthony
As one of the posters on CJ’s House of Lizards noted, the farmer is a survivor of the Yorktown’s sinking at the Battle of Midway. http://www2.dothaneagle.com/news/2009/sep/16/midway_survivor_proud_to_be_on_wiregrass_honor_fli-ar-189713/
This is the sort of person Breitbart is. He would smear someone who’s actually served his country in the interests of his pathetic ideology. Sad.
Mnemosyne
I’m sure it makes me a bad person, but I just can’t get all worked up about how AWFUL and TERRIBLE the administration’s actions were. Yes, they overreacted by firing Mrs. Sherrod, but I think it’s pretty clear at this point that she’s going to be reinstated and receive a public apology, possibly from the president himself. Despite what some other people were claiming, I think the NAACP was (as they now admit, wrongly) hugely influential in the firing and the administration has some breathing room now that the NAACP has backed down and admitted they were wrong.
Not only that, but I really do think this was a huge blow to Breitbart’s credibility with the media. He did the one thing that pisses off the media: he made them look bad. He embarrassed them and made them look like fools. That’s the one thing they can’t forgive.
Yes, yes, buck stops here, all the administration’s fault blah blah blah. If this results in Breitbart getting kicked off TV for the length of the 2010 elections, I can only count this as a win, frankly.
bemused
Breitbart went to the edge of the cliff with the Acorn bamboozle & now with his Sherrod smear & saying on CNN that the farmer’s wife is a plant, he is teetering on the cliff barely hanging on when even the most rightwing crowd are backing away from him. I’d like to think these self mutilating decisions of his are cries for help but it’s highly doubtful he thinks he needs any mental health care.
Kryptik
@anthony:
And? That’s hardly news. Look at what the Right in general did to both John Kerry and Max Cleland. Military service doesn’t exempt you from your life and/or reputation being ruined if you’re politically inconvenient to them.
@Mnemosyne:
Again, as I said to DougJ: You have more faith in the long term memory of media whores than I do.
BDeevDad
Evidently, the USDA is considering rehiring her. What is the relevant law with respect to libel? Is there a case there?
Hell, Glenn Beck is defending her. Fox News is throwing Breitbart under the bus.
maya
How to prove she is actually the farmer’s wife?
Well, bring her in with a carving knife and lower your pants, Andy, and let’s find out.
anthony
@Kryptik: Yeah, I know… but it’s still pretty fucking amazing that they’d stoop that low.
wait, who am I kidding. They’d go after anyone, even Saint Reagan, if it was convenient. Fuckers.
Bulworth
It’s hard to believe I don’t watch cable TV “news” anymore.
kc
You tell me as a reporter how CNN put on a person today who purported to be the farmer’s wife? What did you do to find out whether or not that was the actual farmer’s wife?
Are you fucking kidding me? Jesus Christ, what will it take for the mainstream media to write this clown off?
frogspawn
Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run,
They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a thing in your life,
As three blind mice?
georgia pig
@Mnemosyne: This may be true. Ratfuck by the NAACP? If so, they pwned Breitbart and Fox. Brilliant.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Let’s talk if and when she is actually reinstated. And I not only want a public apology, I want her served a beer in the White House Rose Garden.
Fuck both the NAACP and the administration for their roles in this. They should have known better. This was the administration that put on a big dog an pony show over the rehabilitation of Eric Shinseki.
Bullshit. The media are shameless. It goes with the territory. And Fox News and other outlets clearly don’t give a rat’s ass about credibility. They only care that they can influence public opinion.
There’s more where he came from. The faces change. The lying is constant.
Jennifer
@BDeevDad: I certainly hope so.
I’m not an attorney, but the bit about libel/slander that I do recall is that it’s a lot easier to make a case if you’re not a public personality, such as a politician or an actor. This woman, Mrs. Sherrod, clearly is not a public personality, regardless of holding a appointed position with the federal government. Moreover, this was not a case of say, a newspaper reporting something like “financial irregularities have been discovered in the agency she oversees,” which would be a statement of fact that doesn’t make claims of guilt or anything.
This was a case where what she said was deliberately edited to smear her as the exact opposite of who she is.
As I understand it, that’s one of the other big litmus tests for a libel/slander case – being able to show that the falsehood was either deliberate or arose from an absence of caution and designed to defame the individual in question. There’s no arguing against that in this case.
Captain Haddock
If I were her I’d be shopping for an attorney. I’d look in to libels suits starting with Breitbart and ending with the USDA. It was her firing that made things worse.
shortstop
I enjoy watching those people waste their ad budget on a bunch of dirty ghey-loving libs like us. If I recall correctly, Mr. John McCain dropped quite a bit of coin shilling for votes on bleeding-heart blogs. Try to think of it that way; it helps a little.
Mnemosyne
@Kryptik:
The media whores never forget an insult, and Breitbart made them look like fools. Even Fox News can’t manage to get the story straight and is simultaneously claiming that Sherrod is a terrible racist against white people and she’s an innocent victim of an overzealous administration.
That’s what they’re going to have a hard time forgiving. They never cared that Breitbart was a liar as long as he brought them good footage, but now he slapped them in the face. That’s why Breitbart is thrashing around so desperately to keep the story alive — he knows that if he can’t get it back on track, he’s done as far as anyone outside of Fox News is concerned. He will be dead to CNN, MSNBC and Charlie Rose because they won’t want to take the risk of being made to look like fools again. And he did it within 24 hours of the story breaking, too.
Morbo
@anthony: Remember when the winger blogs went after the veterans of the 89th Infantry Division in WWII trying to see if they could prove that Obama’s grandfather was a… I dunno? When will Breitbart crawl back under the rock he came out from? Yeah, there’s no shame to be found here.
shortstop
Sherrod, unsurprisingly, is unwilling to let the decision on whether she returns to the USDA rest solely with other people.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Sure, there will be another Breitbart, but it will take the machine at least a few months to produce another one. Remember, his protege is a convicted criminal now, so no one but Fox can turn to him for the same specially edited video that Breitbart creates.
Like I said, Breitbart made the media look like fools. That’s the one thing they can’t forgive.
jeffreyw
Asked my lawyer pal about what the odds on her winning a case and he replied:
Violet
I wonder if President Obama will meet with her. I’d love to see him meet with the farmer couple, the Spooners. I bet they’d remind him of his grandparents in lots of ways. Same age, Mr. Spooner fought in WWII, etc. Seems like meeting with them as a way of apologizing for getting them mixed up in this nonsense would be nice. They seem like upstanding people.
Breitbart is an unhinged, dangerous freak. I hope he’s blacklisted by the media. And Sherrod should sue him.
El Cid
We don’t even know that the Spooners were real people. The Saul Alinsky-run Communist News Network could easily have hired James Cameron to create them out of CGI animation because Hollywood is in on all this anti-white discrimination.
bkny
@kc:
man, i was speculating yesterday that we’d be seeing reports of the harassment of the spooners; but i never could have imagined breitbart actually going to ‘purported to be the wife’.
unfuckingbelieveable.
cleek
the “she’s a racist” story is alive and kicking in wingnut world. read the comments on any wingnut blog or MSM story about this. they are totally united in the belief that the full video proves her racism just as well as the short one did.
the MSM might be mad that they got duped, today, but i suspect their permanent fear of wingnut rage is going to stop them from putting that anger into action. and there will be enough voices pushing the “she’s still a racist” angle that “we got duped” is going to have to fight for airtime. the story will be turn into another “sides differ” nontroversy.
/crystal ball
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
Someone posts a video of you talking to someone else about shtupping the underage mailroom guy, and your employer calls you and says pull over, you’re done here. Then they say they don’t want to hear the truth, don’t have time for it.
Now you get to drive home and stew on it.
No matter what happens next, you think you’ll be ok with that anytime soon?
BTW, I really enjoy your use of all caps for AWFUL and TERRIBLE as a way to diminish what has happened to her. Nice touch.
GregB
Why does Andrew Breitbart hate World War II veterans and Black people?
demo woman
The President just signed the Reform Bill. I am watching the ending online and it appears that Vilsack is on stage with him.
Are my eyes deceiving me?
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t give a rat’s ass about Breitbart. Why should you? More importantly, why should you care more about the machinations of the news media than about a woman whose life was pointlessly screwed with by people who will land on their feet somewhere, free to fling more crap, no matter what happens in the short run?
@Jennifer:
Successful slander suits don’t restore your life and reputation.
And the larger damage is already done. The people who are eager to believe a lie will propagate it until the end of time.
Jared
I’ve seen it written that Breitbart is the far right’s Chris Hitchens. Not so. Breitbart is just a drunk.
(Also, Chris Hitchens could well be the far-right’s Chris Hitchens.)
Corner Stone
@cleek:
Of course she’s a racist. And if things develop and she somehow goes back to USDA she will always look around and see that judgment.
As an additional win, this has also damaged the NAACP. The circus is going to make it a bunch of equivalencies now.
Chad N Freude
@maya:
See if she’s being pursued by three visually impaired mice.
Waynski
@Jennifer: It’s nearly impossible to win a libel/slander case in this country. I’ve never heard of anyone winning one in my adult life. Can anyone cite a case? I mean, I would love it if she sued his ass into oblivion, but I think it would be pretty tough. My guess is she’d be pretty happy to get her job back and get out of the news, but somebody should offer her a book deal also too.
Hob
I’m just surprised Breitbart didn’t take it even further: “Who’s to say these farmers even existed? How do you know Sherrod wasn’t lying about having not helped (and then helped) a white guy? Think about it! I mean… no, wait a minute… shit.”
AnotherBruce
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
No, there used to be such a thing as a liberal media. But it disappeared around 30 years ago. And this was more than evident when the media all but ignored the Iran-Contra crimes.
matoko_chan
i watched this.
it is striking how scared and angry he is.
Why?
he told the NAACP to go to hell two days before he released the tape.
and that is why he has to say he only got a scrap of the tape.
Rock
There’s no reason for optimism about our failed media experiment:
1) The internet and plus also real life people I’ve talked to all think she was a racist who should have lost her job. The take-away people got was that she said she discriminated against white farmers. That’s the end of the story for them. No extra context or nuance changes that.
2) Breitbart may be condemned by Buchanan today, but it won’t have any long-term consequences. Breitbart will still have the same job and the next video will receive essentially the same reception.
Joshua
Yea with every passing minute it seems that Breitbart’s reign on cable news is done. There’s really only one thing you can’t do to get blacklisted and that is make cable news look dumb. He’s done this, in spades.
It reminds me of good old Barry Bonds. I always wondered if Barry Bonds got such rough treatment not because he was a huge asshole, but because he was a huge asshole to reporters. I suspect it was the latter.
Kryptik
@Corner Stone:
Exactly. I don’t see how the fuck this response and subsequent fallout helps anyone outside of Breitbart, wingnut activists, and Fox News. And I honestly don’t see how actually waiting and trying to get info before making judgments would have helped out that Triumvirate of Crazy any more.
Bella Q
@BDeevDad: Please keep in mind that Glenn Beck is not so much defending Shirley Sherrod but rather exploiting the hasty overreaction of Vilsack to make the White House look bad. He’s as much of a sociopath as Breitbarf, and he has a cable show. His “defense” is simply canny media manipulation of a governmental misstep (understatement of 2010 award for that characterization of the forced resignation, please). He’ll use it to pretend he’s not a racist. But he is pushing a (white, Christian, sort of) theocracy. So of course he’s lying. I give him full marks for clever exploitation though – he’s usually not quite that quickly deft.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Because he just tried to destroy an innocent woman’s life? Or is that no big deal — just a wild animal doing what a wild animal is going to do — so we should ignore Breitbart’s part in this whole thing?
Because, unlike you, I don’t think Mrs. Sherrod’s life and reputation was hopelessly ruined by less than 24 hours of shit being thrown at her. She’s better and smarter and stronger than that. Vilsack is going to have a hard time getting her to come back to work without a very public apology, and if Breitbart doesn’t think he’s going to be sued by her with the full backing of the NAACP, he’s got another think coming right quick.
I also care about the machinations of the news media because I think it’s worthwhile to try and make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else. Don’t you? Or do you think the news media should be allowed to try and ruin people willy-nilly while we shrug our shoulders and say, “Well, no one will believe it anyway, so what’s the big deal?”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Krugman puts it in a nice nutshell
bemused
I hope the media thinks they were taken for fools. I hope they are furious and will take steps not to get so royally punked again. I doubt it would last long. The media will find a way to report another Breitbart type piece of crap saying it is crap but manage to blame the rightwinger and the Obama administration equally or more at the same time.
wasabi gasp
Shirley is friends with so many white farmers wives, it could have been any one of them.
Hob
@Brachiator:
Because Mnemosyne was suggesting that the main crap-flinger was not going to land on his feet and would not be able to screw with other people’s lives in the future. I’m not convinced that that’s true, but that was the idea, so your response is pretty far off point.
I mean, if there were a giant robot rampaging through your city stomping on people, and then it appeared that one of the robot’s feet might have been shot off (possibly by itself), and someone suggested that this was a good thing, would you be saying “why should you care more about the machinations of the giant robot than about the stomped people”?
Chad N Freude
@Joshua:
You can’t be serious.
thingsbreak
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/us/politics/22sherrod.html
NY Times says the White House is ordering a review of the firing.
The piece itself is a terrible example of balance as bias. Also note the way The Newspaper of Record handles the Breitbart/ACORN story.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@bemused:
Nothing will trump their raw terror of being called out by Bill O’Reilly as having a liberal bias. Hell, people whose careers started in the Bush years seem to be scared shitless of that canard (side note: Does anyone know if modern Poobahs, like David Broder or Tim Russert or Tom Friedman are held up as examples in J-schools?). Six months or so ago, when the White House stated the obvious about FoxNews, Jake Tapper was almost in tears about the “attack” on his “sister network”.
GregB
Why does Andrew Breitbart remind me of Mel Gibson? Is it the lunatic demeanor and the heavy breathing?
Davis X. Machina
@demo woman: Futures regulation is a big deal in the Ag world. I’d expect him to be there….
cleek
i predict a Time magazine cover for Breitbart. maybe Man Of The Year.
Tim Waters
Breibart was able to kill off Acorn without any checks. I guess he figured he could get away with the same thing again. He almost did.
Someone mentioned Slander, I think that would be appropriate.
This weasel should be at least fined and so should Fox. I’ll take this opportunity to suggest bringing back the Fairness Doctrine in fighting Fox and All right wing vessels. This story might have been nipped in the Bud from the onset.
merrinc
@Brachiator:
Of course there is. And Brietbart isn’t done. Even if he is publicly disgraced (if such a thing is possible among people who have no shame), he’ll always have a place on the right. Maybe he can go work with Roger Stone.
There’s no fucking WIN in this situation anywhere.
shortstop
The FD wouldn’t apply to cable.
BDeevDad
@Bella Q: No argument here. But, I’d add that it’s also Fox distancing themselves from Breitbart as well, meaning the cleverness is probably not Beck’s doing.
ellaesther
You’re going off of her word that the farmer’s wife is the farmer’s wife?
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
Econwatcher
I think Breitbart might actually pay a price for this (sort of the way Trent Lott did) but otherwise nothing will change. It’s good to offer up a sacrificial lamb once in a great while so that you can claim that you police your own.
And this, as someone else pointed out, is a very unusual circumstance where videotape irrefutably disproves the initial claim.
Kryptik
@merrinc:
Worst part is that it didn’t have to be so.
Christ, at this rate, I’m ready to slog back a bottle of Everclear.
ellaesther
@cleek: I am going to go out on a limb here and say publicly that I disagree. I think this is going to ultimately have a more positive fallout than the negative that it started with, and it will serve to shake up the MSM at least a little bit.
Why “out on a limb”? Because you’re usually right that things are worse than I think. So I’m risking disgrace here.
cleek
@thingsbreak:
all the coverage i’ve read is just like that. it’s as if they’ve taken stories written on Monday – when she was a wild-eyed racist – and just added new qualifiers here and there; maybe added a paragraph or two about the alleged editing and how she says it distorted her message. (actually, that’s exactly what they’ve done. you can watch them tweak the stories hour by hour). and by now, they’ve turned the whole thing into a he said / she said.
if the MSM was seriously angry about being duped, their stories would read much differently.
@ellaesther:
you give me too much credit. :) but, i’m always happy to see my pessimism proved wrong! (really!)
ed drone
@matoko_chan:
His claim to ‘only a scrap of the tape’ doesn’t ring true with his ‘I have to wait for permission’ to post the whole tape. He’s a liar, a serial liar, and a scum-bag to boot.
Ed
Steeplejack
@Waynski:
But it’s pleasant to indulge the fantasy of Breitbart getting a taste of something like the Swift Boat treatment:
Publicity-hungryAltruistic lawyer takes Sherrod’s case for free, Breitbart is forced to spend time and big money defending himself while his entire history and record are raked over and sifted through for the world to see. With predictable reactions when they turn out to be as repugnant as expected.And the MSM would cover it because it would be theater, which they love.
John Bird
Where I usually see that anti-gay ad with the frilly font down below, I’m now told that I can get $2 off granite-counter polish! Thanks, guys.
QuaintIrene
Well, because he’s so used to making shit up he just assumes everybody else does too.
Saw a few minutes of him on MSNBC (God, hope it;s the last.) He’s going on about how he has sympathy for Sherrod and he supports her getting her job back.
Well ain’t that big of him. He’s directly responsible for getting her fired but hey, no hard feelings. His primary target was the NAACP and there’s alway collatoral damage in war, right?
Now he’s saying he himself got the edited, not the whole tape. So where exactly did he get it. From whom?
Kryptik
@cleek:
It’s bullshit like that which makes me entirely doubt the optimistic ‘Breitbart’s influence is ruined!’ line. I’ll believe it in 3-4 months if he’s still provably blackballed by that time. Unfortunately, I fully expect him to be back on my teevee, helping explain why the NAACP needs to be immediately be dissolved.
Corner Stone
@Kryptik:
A little 7Up, a little OJ and some ice. Nutritious and delicious!
Splash of grenadine if you have it for an everclear sunrise.
Kryptik
@Corner Stone:
Are you kidding? With all this crap around, I’m ready to suck it straight from the bottle, and deal with the eventual alcohol poisoning with a sense of zen.
ed drone
@thingsbreak:
This morning’s Washington Post story on it didn’t have the revelation that it was a damnable lie until the 14th paragraph, and that buried on page 7.
Damn them all to hell.
Ed
demimondian
@shortstop: I actually complained to Google about that particular advertisement, as I feel it violates the TOS of the GDN. There has been no response from the company.
Jude
@Morbo: I was just reading something today that I’d written about that crazy-ass affair.
The charge of the furry brigade.
bemused
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Beck, Limbaugh, O’Reilly…it depends on which one has the biggest wingnut audience to scare R’s and media shitless. Beck seems to be edging out the other two.
It’s a given that Breitbart and his kind don’t give a rat’s ass that their hatemongering incites the raging loonies to violence and for many, that’s the goal but the media really deserves utter contempt for aiding and abetting them.
matoko_chan
Now Breitbart says its the NAACP’s fault.
Exit question–
Why is this man so angry and incoherent?
stuckinred
Remember the story of Malcom X? He was a criminal and when he went to prison he learned to read and became a member of the Nation of Islam. He rose through the ranks fully believing in the “white devil” theory. Then he went to Mecca and saw how many Muslims were white. How could this be? Was it something other than race? When he made the link to “institutional” racism as opposed to something inherent in people because of the color of their skin, he was murdered. In the same vein, MLK was killed when he started taking about the institutional racism in America and the relationship to the war in Vietnam.
Corner Stone
To me, one of the oddest things is that as I posted yesterday, I woke up early and turned on Morning Joe where they were discussing this. They showed the edited clip and even though it was 5:30am I was like, “Wait. What? She said what?”
IOW, it just seemed really off. And I knew nothing about her before this fluffle. But a mature woman is telling an audience that she’s using her govt power to destroy a white family?
Somebody should’ve spent a little time running this through the WTF-ometer.
BC
I don’t see how, seeing the entire video, anyone could say that Ms. Sherrod did not help the white farmer from the get go. Yes, she says she did not give him the “full force” but instead put him in touch with a white lawyer who had taken training on Chapter 12 bankruptcy (new law for farms in 1986) thinking they would take care of “their own.” She admits she looked at it in a prism of race – she, after all, had become an expert on how to keep farms out of foreclosure with the intent of helping the black farmers who were not being helped at all by USDA (this failure by USDA led to Pigford suit). Her story at this time is in the genre of the evangelical “how God showed me the error of my ways” and has to be understood in that context. No story that I have read explains how she failed the farmer at the beginning – she did refer him to what she thought was a competent lawyer. When she learned that the lawyer wasn’t competent and was just advising them to give up, and when she learned that USDA had done something to keep the Spooners from using Chapter 12 bankruptcy, then she became involved and gave them the “full force” of her expertise.
Corner Stone
@Kryptik: My motto is, “Drink what you need today, so that you may live to be drunk another day.” Or “every day” as the case may be.
El Cid
On the bright side, for all its real and still frightening weaknesses, Obama signs financial regulation.
jurassicpork
Yet today, Breitfart isn’t the villain but the Obama administration. It’s Van Jones/Glenn Beck and Dan Rather/Swift Boat Vets for Truth all over again. The right wing snaps its fingers and the Step-n-Fetchit Obama junta says, “How high, Massa?” Another reason to vote Obama out of office in ’12.
Meanwhile, the Man of the Hour, Breitfart, is casting about for new victims and will be lionized for it.
Well, today we find out if Mrs. JP’s layoff is permanent or temporary. In the meantime, we have zero chance of being able to pay the rent next month so whatever little anyone can do would be greatly appreciated.
BC
@Kryptik: First, we have to have the Congressional resolution denouncing both Ms. Sherrod and the NAACP, then we can have Breibart saying that the NAACP should be dissolved.
Corner Stone
@BC: It’s a beautiful story, and a powerful story.
The real crime of all this is that her essential message, the real power behind her life’s work, will be completely ignored.
PeakVT
What I want to know is why Vilsack responded immediately instead of handing to human resources or legal affairs or some other internal group. It was flat fucking stupid to not do so regardless of how damming the video was.
demo woman
According to the Plum Line, Shirley fights back
Popcorn time
Shalimar
@MattF: The question is, did Beck call for Sherrod to be fired Monday night before saying on Tuesday night that they fired her without due process? Or, did he just tut-tut about what an evil racist she was without calling for action?
Chris
The “right thing to do” at this point depends on what Ms Sherrod wants to do, but: I think it would make good poetic justice, of a sort, and also good television theater, to give her an entirely new job: she could have a voice in investigating right-wing-media charges against people. If there’s another “ACORN tape” or “NAACP speaker admits racism” or anything similar, she could be the one to investigate (or at least collect the facts from professional investigation staff), and present the findings to the general media.
Not sure exactly how one would run this system, but, as I said, it would make good poetic justice and TV.
BubbaDave
@shortstop:
I click the link, go to their page, take their survey (unfortunately there is no comment section where I can explain that not only do I believe homosexuals should have all the “special” rights listed but I also believe Barney Frank should be able to choose one anti-gay leader per year to be sodomized by a horse on pay-per-view TV), and think happily about the money I cost them.
demo woman
Here is the link for the Plum Line
Kryptik
@Corner Stone:
That’s the most upsetting thing. Even from the start it smelled fishy, especially when people kept leaving out the part where she said she felt like she was being lectured on how superior he was to her. No one bothered to even give a minor sniff about to see if it passed the smell test until the bomb dropped.
As far as your motto…I’m honestly considering more along the lines of ‘Drink Fast, Die Young, Let The Unlucky Bastards Still Up Top Deal With The Crazy’. Feels like I’ll die a lot saner that way at the very least.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PeakVT: It would be mildly interesting to know how/why this story got to Vilsack. Does he have a staffer who’s obsessed with FoxNews? Does he have an eye on getting an IA Senate seat, so his home operation got freaked out by that billboard?
Bella Q
@Corner Stone: The WTFometer has been broken for a bit, I’m afraid.
Froley
@matoko_chan:
That video is simply amazing. “They made it about her” — Breitbart is either insane or has an immeasurable level of chutzpah.
Kryptik
Shirley Sherrod fights back.
Thank god someone has a spine. And honestly, for all the strategic reasons one can give for saying not to make it about race, I think just attacking it head on here makes sense. It’s already become about race, and even with hemming, hawing, and measured statements, the Breitbarts, and the Freeps, and such will continue to try and make this about ‘Racist Obama and his racist cronies’. Why not face the issue face front at least for a spell, and get these assholes exposed for what they really are?
Even if the country still ends up supporting them significantly, it’ll be a telling thing to see just how fucked we are, rather than finding out months to years down the line.
Davis X. Machina
@PeakVT, @Jim, Foolish Realist: Most of us can recite most of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or Blazing Saddles from memory. They can do it with The War Room. Which is why they do what they do for a living, and we do what we do.
Kryptik
@Davis X. Machina:
Maybe that’s why I keep getting those ‘The Sherrif is a-near!’ vibes these days.
Waynski
@Steeplejack: I’m with you on that. Making
himhis right wing overlords shell out dough for a legal defense would make me happy. I’m just not sure she could win, but his unethical process would be exposed. I think the MSM will shun him for awhile, maybe even Fox, but as soon as he comes back to them with something they can verify as authentic, he’ll be back on their go to list.Corner Stone
@Chris: If we’re lucky, in the govt there still exists some agency somewhere that has funding and its mandate is to assist poor people.
I’m not saying this fantasy is real, but if it is I hope Ms. Sherrod can lend her insight and energy to its success moving forward.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s actually why I think Breitbart is done in the MSM, at least for a few months. Beck and Erickson have publicly turned on Breitbart, which means it’s now safe for the “mainstream” reporters to do the same thing.
I fully expect an O’Reilly denunciation of Breitbart today because he reported on the story yesterday before the truth came out. O’Reilly is going to be pissed that he now looks like a fool.
They’re not circling the wagons on the right. They’re making a firing squad. It’s nice to see one on their side for once.
ellaesther
@cleek: I tell my born-pessimist son (nearly 11 years of woe-is-me and counting!) that he’s lucky, because all of his surprises in life will be good ones.
lou
@ed drone: It gets worse. Jim Van der Hei was also on Channel 8 blaming the whole thing on the NAACP. If they hadn’t accused the Tea Party of having racists in their midst, like, you know, all the other parties, democrats, republicans, conservative, liberals, this never would have happened.
False, equivalency much, Jim?
But it was lucky I read that Post story just before I went for a run instead of after. It helped me get some aggression out.
El Cid
@ellaesther:
Hey, it’s worth hoping for.
Nellcote
@Waynski:
When is that expected to begin? He’s been all over this morning being the “he said” in the inevitable he said-she said.
Mnemosyne
@Nellcote:
After O’Reilly’s show today, is my bet.
Joseph Nobles
If Andrew Breitbart had challenged the veracity of the video edit as strongly as he did the veracity of the Spooners, Shirley Sherrod would still have her job.
Oh, who am I kidding? That implies Andy’s interested in the truth.
Chad N Freude
Article about Breitbart from the May 24 2010 issue of the New Yorker.
Bill Murray
@BC: and then the Bill of Attainder against the NAACP
Bill Murray
@Chad N Freude: excellent
Snowwy
@jurassicpork:
YOU can just fuck right off. How dare you talk that way about the President?
Troll, blogwhore, AND racist? Is there ANYTHING you do the right way?
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
I never said that her life and reputation was hopelessly ruined.
But I said, and say again, that nobody deserves to be used as a pawn for political games players. And people who pay more attention to the gamesmanship than to what happens to the people who are wronged are not paying attention.
Public apologies aren’t worth shit. And while winning lawsuits are somewhat ameliorative, they rarely are as satisfying as some want to believe.
Let me assume for a second that you have worked for a media company and that we are on equal footing here. In the past I have worked for the LA Times and other media companies and have a few contacts here and there in management and operations. And I referenced a fictional film, Absence of Malice, which actually does a fair job in artistically portraying the callousness of media companies and how they often make sure that they have their legal bases covered when they ethically screw people over.
In a nutshell, being embarrassed or being made a fool of doesn’t matter to editors and publishers. Like many lawyers they have the shame gland removed early. A lucky few are born without it and really go far.
And let me give you this little lesson (and this is not based on the LA Times, cause I still have to respect confidentiality rules). I have seen a media company do someone great harm, and get sued in return. Because they had deep pockets, they delayed, obfuscated and fought, even though they knew that they had done wrong. The victim in this case was tenacious and kept fighting. When it appeared as though the media company would lose, they settled out of court and had the victim sign a confidentiality agreement, so that their wrongdoing would never be exposed.
Everyone involved got promoted. And the media company was able to protect its entirely phony reputation as being an avenger of the little guy.
This is standard operating procedure. It ain’t changing anytime soon.
And having worked the tax side for the past 15 or so years, I have seen my share of structure settlements.
I kinda know where the bodies are buried on both sides of this issue. I may have even passed someone a shovel a time or two.
Breitbart may be stopped or slowed down, but there are weasels jumping to take his place.
The only lesson they learn from incidents like this is to make sure to sling the shit better the next time.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it great if Breitbart is taken down as a result of this, but if you seriously believe that media companies are greatly concerned about looking like a fool, let’s talk about a bridge I got that you might want to buy.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Bill O’Reilly cares greatly about being made to look like a fool. He’s publicly freaked out about it many times. Now that he’s been revealed as a fool for falling for Breitbart’s edited tape, he is not going to be happy.
It’s not about the editors and publishers. It’s about the reporters and on-air personalities. Those are the ones who are going to be pissed off and demand retribution from Breitbart.
Again, it’s not the media companies. It’s the media personalities who are going to be upset and not want to have him on their show anymore. I doubt it will even get up to the level of, say, the head of CNN making the decision about whether or not to keep booking Breitbart after he made the on-air personalities look like idiots. Blitzer and Anderson will make that call themselves, and I doubt the higher-ups are going to care enough to overrule them.
I doubt that Sherrod would get very far in a lawsuit against CNN and MSNBC, but I also doubt those guys are going to go to the mat to protect a freelancer like Breitbart when it’s so much easier to claim that you were also duped and put it all on him. He’s going to be cut loose so fast his head is going to spin, because he’s a liability that they won’t owe a dime to for cutting him off.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
O’Reilly’s standard thing is to bloviate and keep on going. I have rarely seen him apologize. It is even more rare that he backs down and changes his position about anything because he has been shamed.
And O’Reilly is no stranger to confidentiality agreements.
It is indeed about editors and publishers. Reporters and-on air personalities don’t make demands. Reporters are hired help, and are easily replaced. Are you high? Haven’t you read any of the stories of editors standing up for the rank and file reporters who have subsequently been dumped on their asses by publishers who don’t have time to entertain acts of rebellion?
The personalities may yell and cry. They don’t make the final decisions unless they also function as managing editors or have a similar operations role. Anyone who has been around a news room knows this.
I agree that Breitbart will probably be cut loose. He’ll be replaced by another weasel.
It is an editorial decision by some media companies to engage reporters and freelancers to find dirt on the NAACP or to try to reinforce the lie that black people are all racists, or to prove that the Obama Administration has “Get Whitey” signs posted in the Department of Justice. For these, the reporters and pundits who are not willing to do the dance are not going to get paid.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
He won’t apologize, per se. He’ll go on the attack against Breitbart for embarrassing him. Being O’Reilly, he may even figure out a way to somehow do it while barely mentioning Sherrod.
Really? Wolf Blitzer is easily replaced? Anderson Cooper? No one would notice if “Anderson Cooper 360” suddenly became “John Smith 360”? The “Charlie Rose Show” could go off the air without anyone noticing?
Like it or not, media personalities are celebrities. Once you get up to the level of having your own show, you’re not easily replaced without pissing off the fans. Ever seen what happens when a soap opera unexpectedly replaces a lead actor? It’s not pretty.
Yep, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck will shut up and do what they’re told. Because they’re so well known for that.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
You mean soap operas never replace actors, even leads? You mean, they don’t have story lines where an actor ends up in bandages that are removed to reveal a totally new face?
The media universe is littered with the debris of the egos of actors, reporters and other on-camera talent who thought that they were irreplaceable.
And the second that ratings drop, no matter how much fans love you, you are gone in a heartbeat.
You’re just straining now.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Sure they do. Do you think that never means a ratings drop or that fans never protest or that no one even notices? Because that was your contention: that Anderson Cooper could be replaced as the host of “Anderson Cooper 360” and none of the viewers would even notice.
So now you’re arguing something completely different? First you were saying that the head of the company can replace media personalities without anyone noticing. Now you’re saying they’ll wait until there’s a ratings drop? What are you trying to argue?
I’m pointing out that viewers have slightly more power than you’re claiming and will stop watching a show if there are too many changes. I’m not quite sure what you’re arguing, except that someone at CNN rules Wolf Blitzer with an iron fist and he trembles at the thought of crossing his producer.
Indie Tarheel
@frogspawn: And now for a musical interlude: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEXkUffyl98