I don’t know if its worth saying much more about the Sherrod case, but I’d like to comment on why it’s so disappointing.
For those of us who hoped that the Obama Administration would usher in a more thoughtful, nuanced and healthy attitude about racial friction, it’s pretty clear from this case that the attitude about race internalized by Obama’s appointees is anything but subtle. We can speculate about whether the White House intervened directly in the Sherrod firing, but it’s pretty obvious from the actions of Cook and Vilsack that Obama appointees believe that the way to please the boss is to jettison anyone who makes a racial gaffe, and to do it during the current news cycle. The Sherrod firing takes us in the opposite direction from the tolerance a lot of use hoped to see.
For those of us who admired the temperament of the Obama campaign and hoped the combination of intelligence, patience and confidence exhibited during his 2008 win would become part of their style of governing, this stupid, panicky and insecure response indicates that the right wing noise machine has some of the Obama crew rattled. Being provoked by a fringe provocateur is one of the dumbest political moves around, because it simply greases up the puke funnel. Mainstream media looks at this case and believe that they missed a major scoop: Sherrod was out before most of them had even filed a story on the controversy, and they’re not going to let that happen next time.
I think the Obama administration has a good chance to recover and learn from this episode, but as it stands, it’s a hell of a disappointment.
SGEW
It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Nick
\
who the hell thought this?!?!? I expected the elected of Obama would cause a spike in irrationality. Jeez, how many times have we had to “have a national discussion about race” since he announced he was running for President?
Econwatcher
Look, even the NAACP initially got punked by this one. Mistakes will happen. But yes, I hope lessons are learned.
r€nato
Imagine if the GOP takes the House this fall.
Imagine the endless fake scandals Darrell Issa is gearing up to create, all with the aim of establishing grounds for impeachment.
Imagine how the reaction of the Obama administration wrt Sherrod, will play out in these circumstances. They’ll jump almost every time Fox News is poutraged over this or that fake scandal. They’ll practically be puppets on a string.
I hope not… I hope they’ve learned something. They need to take a page from the Bush/Cheney/GOP playbook: be belligerent towards your enemies. Give them both fingers, tell them to go fuck themselves, and kick them in the junk just to be sure they got the message. This is how you deal with punks and bullies.
ChrisS
Oh fer fucksakes, Nick.
Augie
When it comes to Bush administration officials who authorized torture and illegal wiretapping, we need to look to the future, not the past. When it comes to well-intentioned bureaucrats who had some bad preconceived notions but learned an important life lesson 24 years ago that ultimately caused them to do the right thing, we need to punish that person unquestionably.
MattF
I’m willing to be somewhat forgiving about the Administration’s reaction– USDA has a dire history of racism, and I’m sure that Vilsack has been told very plainly that the current policy is zero-tolerance. I also think that the benefit of catching Fox/Breitbart in a flat-out lie is a big plus.
demo woman
Mistermix, You said it all. The White House and Shirley were defamed by the right wing. What a win/win situation for Fox News.
Bella Q
It’s disappointing, but I cannot (yet) blame the Presdientt for Vilsack’s overreaction. which was perhaps hastened and certainly empowered by the initial NAACP statement – which was pitch perfect at the moment it was issued, given how little information was available. Whether that statement should have been issued without more facts is a distinctly different issue, as is how the hell they’d not heard of the Sherrods to recognize that name from Georgia.
But Vilsack was the pussy coward here, thinking he was gonna please the administration, I suspect, by getting ahead of the news cycle to make it go away. It can be fixed, and I’m counting on President Obama to do just that, likely with a speech about taking a deep breath and looking beyond the angry baiting of liars like Breitbarf, though he’ll be more tactful. Okay – I’m a hoper; I admit it. Bonus points to anyone who gets the reference (hint – career launching, not politics and pre-1980).
Jayackroyd
I do think you need to note that 1) the GOP targeted this very thoughtfully, and 2) that the cable people created an honest to god frenzy.
If this hadn’t been the USDA, which is working on cleaning up a racist past, it would not have been as effective. Vilsack is obviously hypersensitive on this issue, which the GOP presumably knew when they decided to target this woman.
My criticism would be that the White House is apparently completely sucked into thinking that because something is on the cable teevee, people are paying attention. John King in a lather doesn’t matter to anybody. They can afford to take their time over pretty much anything.
But the one was very well-targeted. And it’s win-win for them. It is gonna last another couple of cycles because of their exposure as frauds. WHICH THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT.
They are gonna have more prominent coverage of this, which means more of the voters they are targeting are going to see a woman who looks like Barbara Jordan in a position they would rather see appointed someone who looks like Earl Butz.
homerhk
Obama is hemmed in by race, imho. Not his fault, that’s the fault of the US public and media in particular. Look how people jumped down his throat and his approval rating plunged after he made comments about the Gates arrest in Mass. Race is a complicated thing and Obama has always been about nixing it in whatever form it takes. So, when this video appeared the initial understandable reaction was to show that there was zero tolerance for such behaviour, whether it was a black person or a white person saying those things. The mistake was the rush to judgment considering the source. They have a chance to correct it and I’m sure they will. This is not about some larger problem with Obama’s administration although people who want to be disappointed can certainly find a reason to do so.
Michael Bersin
And will right wingnut republican politicians walk back their cheerleading for this latest example of the mighty wurlitzer at work? You know, after the facts are actually in?
Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder (r), he of Twitter mania:
peach flavored shampoo
Except, that, uh….they didnt.
If you define “gaffe” as anything Fox News claims is a gaffe, well, then expect about 400 more of these until November 2010.
DougJ
Good post. Well said.
batgirl
@MattF: Only if they use it and push back angrily and loud, make a point of publicly calling on the carpet the news organizations that pushed Breitbart’s bullshit. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Violet
This. Exactly. For some reason, this episode more than any other has left me feeling extremely deflated about the Obama administration. I know it’s small compared to some of the other issues out there, but it speaks to the core issue of fairness and justice and Sherrod was denied both. They’ve handled it badly and the president should make it right. I’m utterly disappointed in how its been handled.
The only possible good news, and it’s only a maybe, is that perhaps Breitbart et al won’t be believed so readily the next time. If that happens, at least something good will come of this whole mess.
gelfling545
One of the multitude of things bothering me about this issue is that the reaction of the Secretary seemed so… un-Obama, if you will. He is not known for bursting into action without knowing the facts or hyperventilating because someone will be on Glen Beck so I was really shocked that one or more of his appointees would do so in his name. I hope and believe that his review of this issue at this point will be more about the actions of the Secretary and other staff than about Mrs. Sherrod who is obviously blameless. As to Vilasik’s ridiculous remark that she could be “second-guessed” and racism attributed to her – isn’t she now the only dept. employee we can be reasonably sure is NOT racist?
PaulW
While I blame the Obama administration for over-reacting too quickly to Breitbart and FOX News, The Real Blame should still fall on Breitbart and Fox News.
Remember the saying “Fool me once, shame on you? Fool me twice… it’s still shame on YOU!” And it IS still shame on Breitbart. *He’s the one* pushing his bullshit propaganda efforts using distortions, edited video, and it’s Breitbart who needs to get fucking kicked to the curb here. The story shouldn’t be about how Obama and Vilsack misstepped here. The story should be “WHY THE FUCK SHOULD WE BELIEVE ANYTHING BREITBART SAYS?”
K. Grant
Honestly. Could you be any more condescending if you tried? This is MoDo level concern trolling.
The WH got caught in the noise-machine, acted rashly, will give Sherrod her job back, and will likely use the whole thing as a teachable moment and then move on.
Likewise, anybody who thought that Obama was going to make this nation immediately healthier regarding our racial discourse is baked in the head. We may get to a healthier place ‘because’ of his presidency, but the discussions during the presidency will be jarring and difficult – we have far too many latent and not so latent racists out there for us to get to our racial happy place any time soon – regardless of who is President.
Tokyokie
It really seems to me that Sherrod has a claim against Breibart/Fox under the Sullivan vs. NYT standard of actual malice: knowledge that it was false or reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity. She should sue the living crap out of them.
Frank
I was watching the Today Show this morning. Matt Lauer had a long segment about it. Not once did Lauder even mention FoxNews by name. Instead, he spent most of the time criticizing the Obama administration.
Yes, Obama’s team screwed up royally. But what is it about the MSM and their cowardice in calling FoxNews out? To not even mention FoxNews’ name is amazing.
Tyro
I had assumed that the new generation of Democrats taking office with the benefit of the last 16-18 years of experience in watching Republicans operate would have developed a thicker skin and more of an instinct to fight than I’ve seen from them lately. I’m actually pretty shocked at the degree to which they’ve internalized an instinctively submissive posture towards right-wing haters and media kerfluffles.
The right simply isn’t afraid of the Obama administration, and that’s the problem.
Nick
@Tyro:
no, they’re not, and there’s nothing Obama can do to change that. The right has the media, and white voters, on their side.
mitch
You have to remember that most of Obama’s “crew” is made up of politicians that have been around for a while, and it’s a little silly to assume that everyone Obama appointed would adopt his temperament and style.
Oh, but I forgot, he’s the One, so he must control everything and definitely had a hand in this…
ET
I read the WaPo on this and it wasn’t until the 15th paragraph – about 2/3 of the way though that it acknowledge that the video snip was a little less than true by saying that she was “trying to make a very different point.”
And you should see the comments on Ed O’Keefs blog the Federal Eye. Facts don’t matter to the majority of the commentors. The fact that E.B. severely edited the speech, and that subsequent actions by Sherrod seriously undermine E.B. attack don’t matter at all. Most are just interested in the Barak Obama is promoting a racist agenda meme. They are all rather sad and pathetic.
Nick
@Frank:
numbskull
@Frank:
Good Morning America at least mentioned that the video turned out to be “heavily edited” by its rightwing source and that the full version showed pretty much the opposite of what had initially been reported and gotten Sherrod booted.
Which was left to beg two questions, one of which was intentional IMO, that being, why would the Obama administration make a decision based on material sourced from a rightwing hack? The other question gone begging, and one the talking head most certainly did not want wafting about, is: why would the MSM report as it did based on material sourced from a rightwing hack that they themselves have previously reported to be a liar?
Violet
@mitch:
He’s the boss. The buck stops with him.
Allison W.
Ms. Sherrod deserves an apology from all fronts, but the only one she will get it from is Obama – whether its in the rose garden or the oval office, she will get it. The admin deserves to be scorned for this, I am not absolving them of their role in this.
I will not, as others have done, absolve the MSM or breitbart. I have seen too many comments where people are giving them a pass because ‘that’s how they are’. Sorry, that’s bullshit. Their behavior is destructive to our society.
MaryQ
Call and e-mail the White House now. I have no idea whether such things have any impact. But it takes a second. And you’ll have something to tell your kids.
bkny
@Frank:
and yet, to msnbc’s credit, tweety, maddow and odonnell all had blistering segments on sherrod, and the deliberate lies unleashed.
but, one of the things that stood out for me displaying the utter cowardice and panic of the white house was that sherrod was instructed to pull over to the side of the road to immediately submit her resignation.
Allison W.
@Violet:
The buck stops with Obama? yes I’ve always believed that. Which is why I never understood why so many of his actions or alleged actions is blamed on Rahm or Geithner. As if the man can’t think for himself.
ornery curmudgeon
@MattF: “the benefit of catching Fox/Breitbart in a flat-out lie is a big plus.”
Yeah, you’d think so. Only, why does mistermix have words like “stupid, panicky and insecure response” for the Obama’s administration … and never mentions the fabricated lies of Fox ‘news’ or Breitbart?
No, really. WHY?
debit
@bkny: Yep. Whoever made that call, whoever decided they wouldn’t even let her make it back to the office to defend herself in person…that person needs to be fired. Sorry, forced to resign. And if the world was just, forced to resign using semaphore flags.
numbskull
@mitch:
Yeah, it’s a shame that Obama was forced to appoint all these incompetent simps. And it’s a shame that he’s been forced to fire the few good people he did hire originally because the rightwing noise machine was so mean to him. If only he was allowed to make his own decisions…
Few are arguing that Obama had a direct hand in this. Hell, the man was busy with Cameron at the time. But, as someone else noted, his underlings are doing what they think he’ll want them to do. Now where would the underlings get that from?
Nick
@numbskull:
because lies from rightwing hacks are constantly treated as truth and never corrected by the media.
because it’s juicy and scandalous and it means they don’t have to talk about the administration’s legislative victories and the apparent improving chances of Democrats holding Congress.
Allison W.
@bkny:
Via TPM:
This is what they same came from the WaPo:
However:
Guster
@ornery curmudgeon: Because it’s Breitbart and Fox’s job to engage in race-baiting while it’s the administration’s job engage in rational behavior.
One of them did their job. One did not.
cleek
@ornery curmudgeon:
because, that’s what it was.
K. Grant
@Violet:
This story is less than a few days old and people are acting like the administration has been dragging its feet on the story for months. Get a grip. And gain some bloody perspective.
Was this a dumb act on Vlisack’s part? Yes. Should they fix this? Yes. Did they overreact to the screaming meatheads on Fox, et cetera? Yes. Does this mean that can’t make it right, and perhaps even make things a smidgen more thoughtful regarding race and jumping to conclusions? No.
The 24 hour cable news cycle will be the death of civilization as we know it. Bloody ADD afflicted ‘news’ producers and consumers.
Take a breath, step away from the nasty screaming people on the idiot-box, and enjoy a glass of wine and the long summer days.
Bah.
Joe Bauers
@homerhk:
Yes he is. Even (especially?) his own. If he weren’t black it would be a lot easier for him to, say, ask for Vilsack’s resignation. That option is not on the table because that would “prove” how he hates whites and favors blacks.
bemused
I would hate to live in Breibart’s head. What a miserable existence.
Kryptik
@K. Grant:
Getting ‘caught up in the noise machine’ is no excuse for such a rapid reaction from the USDA and the White House, especially given that the information exonerating Sherrod came barely hours after she was shitcanned. Christ, even the ACORN ratfucking took months to play out and that was years after boogeymanning as electioneering fraudsters. The least that most of us who are extremely pissed off at this state of affairs would have asked for is a couple days to actually look into the damn thing. Even if it became an albatross eventually….well, look, it’s a fucking albatross right now!
No, seriously, fuck this shit. The White House has proven that it’s internalized the worst bullshit from the right-wing media harpies and noise makers, or at the very least shown that they’ll flinch and drop trou at the smallest bit of non-policy related ‘impropriety’. I mean…what’s next? Asking for the DOJ to investigate ‘Journolist’, since they planned to manipulate the discourse by…gasp…sending a sternly worded letter about the whole damned Rev. Wright Kerfluffle?! I mean, fuck this shit. I’m pissed as hell about Breitbart, Fox, and the usual suspects, but I expected some goddamned FIGHT from the democrats and the White House. I mean, legislatively, I can be patient, because fuck-all happens quickly in Congress. Except perhaps universal condemnation of groups like ACORN based on….a Breitbart-promoted video.
Fuck all, just…fuck it. The Republicans, the Tea Party, Fox, etc. Even if they don’t get all the seats they’ve wanted, they’ve fucking won the country. They’ve won because even the President has succumbed to Battered Liberal syndrome.
Fuck it all.
Allison W.
@numbskull:
His underlings were thinking that the administration wouldn’t tolerate racism from any member of the government – no matter their color. I know Sherrod was wrongly accused and ill treated and yes I know they should have verified the tape.
debit
@numbskull: Actually, I recall a story when his administration started gearing up to appoint/hire. Everyone looking for a position was told to be upfront about anything in their past that could considered embarrassing or scandalous. I would imagine the person who had vetted Sherrod was screamed at until they realized how they’d been had.
Frankly, I can’t see a winning scenario for Obama here. If she hadn’t have been fired, it would have been the entire news cycle that he and his black army are out to get whitey, just as Fox viewers had always suspected. Also, it’s hard to control the narrative when everyone in the media wants the narrative to be that Obama is a failure.
I hope Sherrod has a good lawyer and thinks very hard about her options before deciding to take her job back. Personally, I’d sue the shit out of everyone involved.
Gary K
This is off-topic, but where else can a reader comment on the obnoxious ad that’s getting served up just below this posting? It says “Do You Think HOMOSEXUALS Should Have Special Rights?”, with that all-caps word set in pink in the Curlz font, which in context has the same effect as drooping your wrist. The same font is used to caption “Congressman Barney Frank.” I know you can’t fine-tune the content of your ads, but this is pretty nasty.
tomvox1
This does suck but the direct accountability for this imbroglio rests with Vilsack and undoubtedly the blame is due to lax management oversight. Sherrod was State Director of Rural Development in Georgia, hardly the kind of position that Obama would be directly involved with. Sounds to me like Vilsack took his Deputy Under Secretary Debra Cook’s report on the impending “scandal” at face value and without doing his own due diligence, thus greenlighting Sherrod’s firing under his “Zero Tolerance policy” for racism (the Agriculture Dept. really does have a horrible track record on racism).
Obviously, the buck ultimately does stop with Obama and he can be the one to make it right and set a new standard for not being led around the nose by ginned up right wing bullshit. But if the POTUS were spending his time on real-time personnel decisions all the way down to SDRD in Georgia, then I’d really be worried.
Just my 2¢,
T.
P.S. Obviously Sherrod should be reinstated but just as obviously, I think DUS Cook should be shitcanned.
Nick
@Joe Bauers:
If he weren’t black, this whole thing wouldn’t even have happened.
Zach
You’d think Breitbart would moderate his comment section at Big Government if he’s using the site to accuse blacks of racism. This is from his latest thread pointing out that, yes, Sherrod is a racist because she said that the government took farmland from black folks and sold it to white ones. This is true, but never mind that.
“Wow this lady is an incredible. Most lawyers, especially black lawyers are bad. The funny thing is although she sees everything through a racial lens she seems to blame black people for their plight (we had 15 million acres of land but have sold most of it) rather than evil white people. Would that the NAACP would get the message and realize the plight of black people in this country (for good or bad) is not the result of white racism but black achievement (or lack of it.) And that of course is correct. .”
“Toss me a *victim Shirely, I needs someone to dooz my dishes. ”
“What is this thing babbeling about? I am glad I don’t have her to “hep me”.
“January to October” is “next month” in CPT. No wonder they have difficulty making “they cell phone” bills on time and don’t have the credit to buy that 67 acres down by the creek. ”
“Any time that 90 % of any race of people vote for a man of the same race…you can bet your ass it is because of RACISM !
(not because that person was the right candidate) (which in this case…he definitely was not !)”
“It is truly frightening to realize that these imbeciles not only have the right to vote, but that they can obtain such positions of power to act on their rascism. ”
Picking on random commenters is easy, but these are all comments that received positive marks in their moderation system from highly rated users.
Allison W.
@Guster:
So they get a pass? This is an opportunity for the Left to take it to the these two evils. Instead I hear – oh that’s just how they are.
It is one my top pet peeves. Excusing people’s behavior because that’s how they are. FOX and brietbart should be held accountable and they deserve as much scorn as the admin gets.
Nick
@Allison W.:
In the 24 hour news cycle, there’s no time to do this. Ironically, it’s the media who should be the one doing this.
You want this to stop happening? Destroy the media.
cleek
henceforth to be known as Apology #1.
numbskull
@Nick:
Uh, then why would the Obama administration make a decision based on material sourced from a rightwing hack?
Ash Can
Whoa, whoa, now. Just a cotton-picking minute. The smell of burning hair around here is getting unbearable. I just took a quick tour of the front pages of MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN. The “USDA Reconsiders” story is either the top story, or one of the top stories, on all of those sites. I didn’t read all of the stories, but the MSNBC and CNN stories clearly describe the roles of Fox and Breitbart in this imbroglio. Whether or not these news outlets continue to consider Breitbart a real journalist remains to be seen, but he’s clearly identified as the one who did the hatchet job on the Sherrod video. As a bonus, the stories connect him with the ACORN hatchet job as well.
The memes emerging from this story is that Fox and Breitbart pushed bogus information, the NAACP was “snookered” by them (kudos to the NAACP for using such a snappy, quotable word), and the USDA is willing to change its course of action when presented with more information.
The Obama Administration clearly has a zero-tolerance policy on racism, and I think the reasons for this are obvious. The problem that I think we can all agree on is that zero-tolerance policies can lead to over-reactions, which cause problems in and of themselves. I won’t argue with anyone about that. However, the fact is that, at this stage of the game, Breitbart and Fox are looking worse in the corporate media this morning than the NAACP, the USDA, and the WH are.
What remains to be seen now is this: The ball is in Obama’s/Vilsack’s court, and I’m watching carefully to see what they do with it. I don’t expect the zero-tolerance policy to be changed, but I’m hopeful that they’ll be less willing to jump the gun in the future. More immediately, though, the admin has a 24-karat opportunity to say, as the NAACP did, “We afforded Fox and Big Hollywood the respect we give all journalists, and we were wronged in return.” They can come out of this looking like the good guys, and Fox and Breitbart are set up to take a significant hit in the credibility department (for those who even considered them credible in the first place). In the meantime, though, I’m keeping my head away from open flames.
Allison W.
@Nick:
Huh? I know its the media. And I wish more heat were aimed at the media. Nick, I can think the administration is wrong and I can also think the media and breitbart should be hung by the balls for it.
Nick
@Kryptik:
they never lost it. They may have lost an election, but Fox is the highest rated media outlet in the country. The GOP and the tea party get treated like they’re the new Renaissance and the President gets his speeches cut off because Lindsay Lohan is going to jail!
This whole thing should be used to real pound the irresponsibility of the media, that’s what I’m using for. The administration, it responded the least damaging way in a no-win scenario. The media needs to be called out and called out big.
keestadoll
“Which was left to beg two questions, one of which was intentional IMO, that being, why would the Obama administration make a decision based on material sourced from a rightwing hack? The other question gone begging, and one the talking head most certainly did not want wafting about, is: why would the MSM report as it did based on material sourced from a rightwing hack that they themselves have previously reported to be a liar?”
Maybe I’m just too damned cynical at this point, but isn’t it expected, given how all things have been handled in recent memory, to not seriously evaluate a situation and to just go “knee-jerk?” Despite the hope for a different timbre in our national discourse with President Obama’s election to office, it seems to me that it’s an ingrained thing to satisfy the red meat element of our society first, then worry about our clogged national identity arteries later.
mai naem
Somebody needs to turn the tables on Bretibart. Take one of his non tv media appearances and pull the same thing and send it to Olbermann . I don’t think Maddow would run with it but I think Olbermann would run it.
mai naem
Somebody needs to turn the tables on Bretibart. Take one of his non tv media appearances and pull the same thing and send it to Olbermann . I don’t think Maddow would run with it but I think Olbermann would run it.
mitch
@numbskull:
Jeez, and I thought Obama hired people because of their skillz and their ability to get shit done in their positions. I must’ve missed the article on how everyone he hired was awesome at dealing with race issues and who would wake up every morning and think “What Would Obama Do?”.
Come on, people. Obama hires people from a limited pool of people that probably have somewhat overlapping ideas about the job with him, is seen as competent in some respect, is liked by the Democrats, and who he expects to manage things without bugging him all the time. He doesn’t have time to give psychology tests to everyone.
What annoys me about this griping about Obama’s response is that (as PaulW said) it takes attention away from where the blame/anger should be directed, at Breitbart and Fox. Instead of hearing news reports/opinion about how Breitbart and friends f*#ked up, we’re going to hear more stories about “how could Obama mess up this race issue up, and is it going to hurt him in 2012?”
Brien Jackson
@PaulW:
But Greenwald told me Breitbart wasn’t to blame, Obama was.
cat48
WereBear
At least they’re good on highway safety…
But yes, that’s the part that really ticked me off. She didn’t get a chance to explain anything. And that’s the zero tolerance flaw.
It’s supposed to be zero tolerance for actual acts, ya fool.
Nick
@numbskull:
you answered your own question by blockquoting my quote above.
because lies from rightwing hacks are constantly treated as truth and never corrected by the media.
cleek
@mai naem:
i dunno.
i think the country needs less of this kind of thing, not more.
Allison W.
Interesting. The past several days quite of few people/groups have made fools of themselves for believing a story that came from sources that lack credibility. When will we learn?
Violet
@K. Grant:
In my neck of the woods, summer is a sauna. It’s spent inside with the shades drawn and the a/c on, just hanging on until the first cool breeze in October. Miserable awful stuff, summer.
As for this situation, someone in the administration, most likely in Vilsak’s department, overreacted and maligned the good name and reputation of a very good woman. That’s very wrong and the fact that yesterday they doubled down on it was even worse.
It’s a great disappointment to me that the administration said “how high?” when Breitbart said “jump.” They should know better than to let that idiot direct their actions. And yet they didn’t.
Nick
The lesson of the last 24 hours is…Fox News is nothing more than a right wing propaganda outfit that is willing to air lies and committ slander if it serves a purpose of helping conservatives, the rest of the media is too horny for scandal to realize it or do its own research and we, as a country, cannot exist with a government that has to preempt an impending media narrative every morning before breakfast.
Econwatcher
Not only Glenn Beck and Eric Erickson, but now Jonah Goldberg at The Corner have come out to say Sherrod was done an injustice. So she’ll get her job back if she wants it.
Brien Jackson
I don’t really know why anyone would expect a more nuanced approach to race from the administration, they pretty much have to do whatever they can to avoid the subject. The right has gone all in from day one on the racial grievance card, and they won’t stop until he’s out of office. Rush pushes the idea that the Obama administration is the Revenge of the Brown People every single day, and Beck has said point blank that Obama hates white people. That’s to say nothing of what the hundreds of smaller local wingnut talkers spew daily. And while this is embarrassing and horrible for Sherrod, from a political standpoint I don’t see how you fault the administration for being hypersensitive to anything that will help the right build this narrative, even a little. And it’s not like they’re working from an inherently strong position with the media either, as the total freak out over the Gates incident should have conclusively demonstrated.
Anyway, the real ire should be trained on Breitbart, who continues to shamelessly exploit racial grievances in obviously dishonest ways. It’s really one of the more shocking displays of wingnut propaganda I’ve ever seen, but for all I can tell, progressives are more interested in bitching that the White House is afraid of a racially tinged fight than with calling out the shocking racism/racial cynicism of Breitbart.
Tzal
Here is a story from 2009 on the farmer Sherrod helped out. Mr. Spooner was on the Yorktown and a hero in the truest sense of the word.
El Cid
Again, though this is merely my own evidence-free suspicion, given that this woman is among the black farmer (she and her husband led a black farmer coop since the still-segregation-culture-dominated late 1960s Georgia) plaintiffs who took on and beat the USDA’s historic discrimination against black farmers in aid and lending in a federal lawsuit and settlement, I would think that there was a base level USDA institutional dislike and anger at Sherrod in having a place there.
And given that a latter suit about the handling of the settlement’s terms was decided just a few months ago in a legal process at the now-leader of the USDA, corporate agribusiness lobbyist Vilsack, I also wouldn’t be surprised if a hair-trigger alert against Sherrod went up to Vilsack himself.
Logical suspicions, supported by no facts yet, just my own.
Allison W.
@mai naem:
It won’t work. Olbermann and Maddow are not mainstream. What they talk about rarely gets picked up by the other guys. Do you think that type of story would make it on Good Morning America?
The only way for the Left to make the mainstream news is when they are angry at Obama. Otherwise its just the usual wingnut cat fight that the MSM is sooooo above participating in.
snowbird42
@Violet: Obama was busy with the Brits yesterday. I like to see him out there on this but can you give him a minute. Obama doesnt usually react but is thoughtful about it.
mclaren
Fixed.
C’mon, everyone knew this about Obama going into his campaign in 2008. “No-drama Obama.” Early in his campaign meetings Obama was jettisoning anyone who caused friction. Anyone who creates a ruckus, anyone in his campaign staff who caused a controversy or got press attention…gone.
This has been Obama’s pattern since before he became president. Everyone has known this about his since before day one.
So I don’t see how anyone can blame Obama at this point. He simply does not want people in his administration who are lightning rods. He’s “no-drama Obama.” That’s his choice, and you have to respect it, even if in this case it has some bad racial consequences because the person in question who became a lightning rod happens to be black.
Look, there is a flip side to this coin. Obama has had zero corruption in his administration. As in: none. Absolutely none. Whatsoever. Obama has been zealous about getting people in his administration who are team players and who are straight-arrow honest and who do not rock the boat, and one consequence of that has been absolute and total integrity among his appointees.
Just compare the orgy of corruption and thievery and scams and ripoffs that was the previous maladministration, or the 135 crooks who resigned or were indicted during the Reagan maladministration, and you can see the difference.
This time Obama is getting hammered unjustly. People need to cut him some slack on this one.
Allison W.
@El Cid:
Sorry. Doesn’t fly. This is just more of the Left piling on desperately trying to make the case that the administration doesn’t like poor people.
It’s not ok for the admin to jump to conclusions and it is not Ok for the Left to do it either. This was plain and simple bone headed overreaction.
Wile E. Quixote
@tomvox1:
I’d like to see President Obama shitcan Vilsack and Cook for their incompetence and cowardice, and announce that he was shitcanning them for their incompetence. Then I’d like to see him declare war on the media. Use this as a teachable moment and point out that the media has done this sort of thing before, bring up Dan Rather and Rathergate, the smearing of Steven Hatfield. Go into great detail on how the media destroyed poor Richard Jewell. Just hammer on them and say “Look, these assholes will smear anyone for a story, this isn’t just about Shirley Sherrod, they smeared George Bush, they smeared Steven Hatfield, they smeared Richard Jewell. They have a track record of lying and destroying people’s lives and then never apologizing for it.” And if he’s questioned about it keep hammering on Rathergate, pointing out that the same sloppy bullshit that went into Rathergate went into the Sherrod story and that Dan Rather lost his job over it and that the same should happen at Fox News.
Unfortunately I doubt this will happen because it seems that President Obama’s media strategy is run by a bunch of people who are every bit as chickenshit as Nick is and who have learned nothing from the last forty years of history.
jomo
The demand for her reinstatement and the duplicity of Breitbart have become the big stories, not her firing. Glenn Beck is even supporting her case ferchristsake. We all can and should get mad that it happened, but the fact is that the Breitbart stunt has backfired horribly. All media outlets (yes, including FOX) will think twice before taking anything from the guy. And yes, the administration will save face and rehire her.
numbskull
@debit:
Off the top of my head, I can think of at least one winning scenario: Obama instructs Vilsack to reinstate Sherrod very, very publicly, additionally presenting her with some sort of lifetime achievement award or a promotion or both. At the same time, Cook gets demoted, again, publicly. Everybody attending is shown and given copies of the full video (with narration as an option) and the Brietbart lie (again, with narration) as part of the press kit. Of course, make the combo available on line. Then state over and over and over that clearly we ALL got fooled (NAACP, Vilsack, and the MSM) by the lying rightwing AGAIN. Put the Administration in with the MSM, make the MSM part of the team on this. “Hey guys, we all got fooled. Let’s try not to let that happen again.” But most importantly, you keep saying over and over and over that Breitbart’s video was a lie and THAT is where the true blame goes.
This pisses off the people who will never be on your side anyway and it greatly pleases the people you were starting to lose. For the wishy-washy middle, those paying attention anyway, they see someone being bold and decisive (which is all they ever notice anyway), and oh yeah, actually RIGHT for a change.
Cue Nick to jump in about now to confirm the Dunning-Kruger Effect and argue why this will never work and that clearly Obama must continue to … to do whatever it is he’s doing.
WereBear
@El Cid: I think you’re onto something there. It was SUCH an overreaction… like an allergen thing.
Brien Jackson
@mclaren:
I don’t necessarily want to hold them totally blameless, but the context they’re working in makes it hard to see how this isn’t a rational position. I mean, as Krugman just pointed out, after Whitewater, Travelgate, investigations into the White House Christmas card list, Vince Foster, Bill Ayers, ACORN, etc., the media still takes right-wing scandal-mongering seriously. So if you’re a Democrat, you have to assume that the Beltway media will treat this shit credulously, because 95% of the time they will. And personally, I think the reaction to Obama’s remark about the Gates affair is pretty strong evidence that the cablers are just itching for a racial controversy. The Wright affair was good for ratings, might as well go back to the well, amirite?
Guster
@Allison W.: A pass from whom? I think you’re confusing two things, accountability and scorn.
Of course everyone with any sense scorns Fox News/Breitbart more than the administration.
But accountability is a very, very different thing. Fox News and Breitbart are accountable to their viewers and their sick ideology, not to me. Not to us. The administration, on the other hand, is accountable to citizens, and to reality, and to the health of the country.
So yes, Fox/Breitbart deserve more scorn. And they get it (among lefties). But the administration deserves far more criticism, because they exhibited incompetence. Fox didn’t. They exhibited competence. The reason I hold the administration accountable is because administration actually is accountable. Fox isn’t. They’re just evil.
El Cid
@Allison W.: Bullshit. This isn’t more of ‘the left’ piling on. This was a real fucking lawsuit. It may be speculation, but taking on a federal agency and beating the ever living shit out of it in court — such so that Vilsack mentioned it in his bullshit ‘decisionmaking’ on this — is likely to leave an institutional memory of those who beat the shit out of it.
I worked in a minor volunteer capacity for some of the organizations which were fighting the lawsuit at the time. Neither it nor a detectable dislike for the plaintiffs was part of a ‘left’ imagination.
Anyone is free to interpret this as people obsessed with looking at everything from the internal point of view of the Executive branch and its agencies themselves.
I don’t do that — I never have respected such an exclusive and cowardly perspectives nor will I ever. There is right and wrong, and this was not only wrong but utter bullshit.
arguingwithsignposts
@Nick:
Facts are pesky things. Fox *News* is the highest rated cable news outlet, but far from the highest rated media outlet in the country. I’d wager more people still watch the evening news on ABC/CBS/NBC than watch Fox News.
orogeny
“Being provoked by a fringe provocateurbacked up by the power of the largest cable news network in America along with talk radio and the right-wing blogosphere”
Fixed
shortstop
Meh. The latter is dog bites man. Failing to post “Can you FUCKING BELIEVE BREITBART?!” every five minutes isn’t a display of indifference or misplaced blame; continually pointing out the obvious while amongst ourselves is a rather large waste of energy.
Different story, of course, when it comes to Democrats making this point in public — it needs to be said, often and at top volume.
Frank
I am not aware of people within a certain occupation being any more incompetent than the US media. They are simply overpaid stenographers.
The next time Bretbart publishes a video to FoxNews, the GOP propaganda outlet, the rest of the media should at the very least bring up the Sherrod case and why people should take the next video with a grain of salt. Or is even this too difficult of a task for the main stream media?
shortstop
@El Cid:
A number of people are beginning to note these circumstances. They are probably not irrelevant to what went down this week.
brendancalling
@K. Grant:
they will? do you have an inside line to the white house? has this been confirmed to you by someone with authority, and if so, who was it?
Hugin & Munin
numbskull: Nah, Nick just wants to tell you about his kampf against the shadowy cabal tha controls the media.
Allison W.
@Guster:
What are you talking about? FOX should be held accountable. At every turn they get a pass. When Obama called them on their bias, the rest of the media gave them a pass. And with this blow up, the Left is giving FOX news a pass. FOX new’s audience isn’t just wingers and the rest of the MSM has a habit of picking up their stories and spreading it as fact. They should be held accountable because they influence more than just right wingers.
Bender
WEAK! Stop blaming the right for being right.
They warned that Obama was an empty suit, they pointed out that he had never run so much as a lemonade stand, they said he had no skills but giving an occasional pretty speech (well, Hillary said that, but they agreed), they said he would divide the country racially, they said there was no evidence of his alleged intelligence or patience, they said he’s just another dirty Chicago machine pol, throwing people under his bus at an alarming rate.
It was the left’s bongwater dreams of Lord Obama and his Magic Unicorn that were wrong.
cleek
@jomo:
not even close. it succeeded most impressively. it has made the administration look like scared, spineless, cowards. it has given wingnut pundits a chance to point out how weak, cowardly and rudderless the administration is (because they’ve taken Sherrod’s side against the administration). it gives the wingnut base something to rally around: racist black people are a favorite topic, so they’re sticking with the initial version of the story.
Breitbart himself would be fine if he just kept his mouth shut and avoid interviews for a while; he’d be fine if just kept saying he didn’t make the edited video, full stop.
i’m not sure they planned it this way, but it’s clearly a runaway success.
the only thing that could fuck it up for the right is if the administration finds a way to get traction out of the “dishonest wingnut media” angle. but, given their track record on aggressively countering GOP attacks, there’s utterly no reason to think they will.
shortstop
@Allison W.:
Mmm, but that’s drawing a straight line between the very beginning of this disaster and Obama, and I don’t necessarily think that line exists. It’s quite likely that Cook, perhaps with Vilsack but possibly not, put the resignation train in motion and involved the WH only afterwards when things started to blow up. All speculation, of course.
In any case, it’s not going too far to note some of the hypersensitivity and overreaction that came down were a result of Sherrod and the issues of race and racial discrimination already being prominent in the minds of Vilsack and the rest of the USDA brass due to the very recent movement on the discrimination case.
cleek
@arguingwithsignposts:
the only reason Fox is the highest rated is because they have a monopoly on right wing news; if you’re a wingnut TV news junkie, you watch Fox News and you don’t watch any of the others. all the other news outlets split the non-wingnut cable news junkie audience.
Bender
These days, journalists are B-students whose goal in life is to get their face on TV. And once they do get their faces on TV, they become Bob “I was on vacation” Scheiffer and Charlie “Never heard of ACORN” Gibson.
I mean, this Sherrod story is getting massive play in the MFM today, and CNN (allegedly a major news organization) is still wrongly describing it as “a speech from 24 years ago”!
Allison W.
@El Cid:
NUFF said.
So the Left pummels the admin for believing and reacting to whatever they are told, but you guys have no problem advancing this story based on speculation? How does that make you any better? ’cause its in defense of a civil rights hero? Its okay to make up shit when its in defense of the little guy?
I never said the lawsuit was a lie. but it is piling on and deliberate smearing to say that she was pushed out because she won some money for farmers. There is no proof of that.
Seems like no one learned a damn thing in this whole fiasco.
shortstop
@Allison W.:
Kryptik
@cleek:
And yet, depressingly, they split the non-wingnut junkie audience by offering wingnut junkie material for the most part, outside of MSNBC’s weekday evening block.
Frank
@cleek:
What do you think will happen next time Breitbart gets FoxNews to show one of his heavily edited videos? Do you think there is at least some chance that his credibility has been so sullied that the rest of the media will refuse to show it? And as long as the rest of the MSM refuses to show it, he is done.
arguingwithsignposts
@mclaren:
Wow, is that mclaren saying something positive? the world is upside down.
Bender
Sherrod herself said that whatever assistant to the undersecretary of whatever to whom she spoke told her that the White House demanded her resignation (on the side of the road — they couldn’t wait for her to drive to Athens) because “you’re going to be on Glenn Beck tonight.”
numbskull
@Hugin & Munin:
Hey, I’m sure not saying Nick is wrong about everything Though I missed the cabal thing, I think he and others are right that the media is a huge part of the problem. How he thinks we can destroy it is beyond me, but then, I’m a numbskull. We basically agree on a lot, and therefore he must be right a lot of the time. :)
Brien Jackson
@shortstop:
Fair enough. It’s one thing for blog commenters, but as far as I’m concerned, progressive writers with any sort of platform really need to be hammering on Breitbart, because this won’t stop until the MSM wakes up to the racism of Breitbart’s schtick, calls it out for what it is, and creates the sort of environment where right-wing lawmakers and talking heads are taking a risk by signing on to it.
Montysano
It would be hard not to be rattled. There’s no bottom to the barrel, no limit to what the rightwingers will do to score a political point. I have this thought frequently: I’m thankful that I’m not them. What a suck-ass way to go through life: wallowing around in lies, always angry.
shortstop
Well, there are a couple different versions of that floating around. I’d like to see how that particular one shakes down.
Understand that I’m not giving the administration a pass here; at whatever point it became involved, its handling of this situation on Tuesday was beyond pathetic. I still cannot believe that Vilsack doubled down with the unbelievable argument that a mere accusation is sufficient to remove someone because after that accusation, no one could ever trust that person again.
Brien Jackson
@Frank:
No. None.
shortstop
@Brien Jackson: Absolutely.
Allison W.
@El Cid:
Seems like this teachable moment went over everyone’s head.
based on a ‘source who is familiar with Geithner’s views’ Geithner was accused of trying to push Warren out of the nomination process. The man was practically tarred and feathered over this.
Sherrod is forced to resign based on false accusations from the media and breitbart
The Left is accusing Vilsack or the administration of pushing Sherrod out as punishment for helping farmers get their fair share.
What these three stories have in common is that decisions and actions are being taken based on speculation and unreliable sources. Not a single one contains quotes from the accused that would prove the accusers case.
yeah, so keep pushing that story.
And I never said the lawsuit wasn’t real.
cleek
@Frank:
the administration will fire someone.
Allison W.
@Bender:
that sounds like something an underling would say.
demo woman
@Frank: Sure and now I’m going to spread some magic fairy dust.
Suzan
This is more “blame the victim”. With Fox screaming 24/7 “there is a racist in the WH and they refuse to do anything about it” you can see why it happened. In a just world, Breitbart and Fox will go the way of Drudge. They make everyone jump for awhile but eventually become the boy who cried wolf.
matoko_chan
@Nick:
but they are LOSING it. This is their last stand, and they know it.
Breitbart felt wholly justified in what he did…his point was black people were clapping when Sherrod talked. So he editted the video to make it look inflamatory. It was revenge for Mark Williams being made to look foolish and racist, and for Williams PROVING the TPM has racists in its ranks. Vilsack is a fool too, and Obama wasn’t involved.
So quit blaming him.
Breitbart was going after the NAACP, not Sherrod.
This is what they believe….that the liberal elites are stealing elections by unjustly framing the TPM as racist.
They know the demographic timer is running down on non-hispanic caucs, and they know they need to broaden the appeal of the TPM to include youth and minorities. But they are absolutely incapable of executing. Its just crazipants to think a single minority or youth voter will switch allegiance based on Breitbarts immoral slur on Sherrod’s speech. Why is their image so important to Breitbart? The conservative movement has pretty much given up on the black vote– but they do understand that they cant get the youth vote or the brown vote if they are perceived as racists.
So what they do is magical thinking. They think if they say the TPM is not racist, but the other guys are the racists, and say the TPM is not just older white conservative christians, but bi-partisan and multi-racial often enough and loud enough it will become true.
And they are stone furious. Its all slipping away.
Breitbart started up Big Hollywood on the day Culture 11 died. Culture 11 was an attempt at honest conservative intellectual discussion including dissent and free thought. It failed, and Big Hollywood thrives. But both blogs had something in common– a focus on culture.
Big Hollywoods mission statement–
“Taking back culture”….is impossible. There is no culture war in this country–there is only an evolution of culture event, like glaciation or the extinction event at the K-T boundary. Breitbarts effort is just as doomed as the Bush Doctrine. The Bush Doctrine failed because when muslims can vote, they vote for more Islam, not secularism. Breibart’s effort is doomed to fail because there is no way to make angry old white christian people cool.
cleek
@Allison W.:
maybe the self-appointed perma-rage “Left” is. but nobody i read or respect is saying that.
shortstop
@Allison W.:
numbskull
@Brien Jackson:
But haven’t they already been doing this? And further, didn’t the MSM already report (though tepidly) on the fraudulent ACORN video? I guess I don’t see the MSM changing their ways just because we have truth on our side even when we get them to admit and report the truth. The next episode tomorrow is going to be treated like nothing happened in the past.
Allison W.
@shortstop:
I’m not talking about wooing viewers away from FOX or wooing FOX itself. Don’t claim to be powerless now when all I have seen and read from the Left is how powerful they are and how they could do so much better in dealing with FOX than the administration. Maybe the Left could spend less time using their tv appearances to pummel the admin on just about everything and use their time to call out the media to their face right on the spot that they are parroting right wing talking points.
Brien Jackson
@numbskull:
I admit, I have no real idea how to accomplish it, but that’s what you need to do. As long as the right-wing can count on the media to treat this nonsense credulously, even after Breitbart gets caught doctoring videos and making up stories, there’s no real alternative for Democrats. Especially when there’s an obvious financial incentive involved for the media, as a racial controversy involving the administration would be ratings gold.
Allison W.
@shortstop:
SPECULATION.
You guys are really learning to think like the right wing.
No.
paradox
This information in my head is way old, I’m sure it’s shifted somewhat, but it’s still basely relevant.
Fox News is the highest rated cable news network with about 2.5 million viewers a night. The other three networks divvy up the other 23 million viewers who tune in every night but do not watch Fox.
Allison W.
@cleek:
I have seen it in multiple comment threads in several Liberal blogs which is why I’m reacting the way I am. I don’t know if its a story passed down from a liberal blogger OR if its a story that’s bubbling up from the bottom. Whichever, its out there and it won’t be long before we start seeing it reported as true in the liberal blogosphere.
shortstop
@Allison W.:
WTF was that?
shortstop
Okay, recapping, then — in Allison Land:
1. “it’s unlikely that a humongous discrimination lawsuit that embarrassed the USDA and was co-led by the person who resigned on Monday is unlikely to have been completely off the minds of the people who were so eager to see Sherrod go without checking the facts first.” = SPECULATION (which is inherently bad)
2. “that sounds like something an underling would say” = GOOD
I think I’ve got it. For now.
shortstop
Little Dreamer, is that you?
Nick
@numbskull:
No, just Rachel Maddow.
Quite honestly, if the truth about Sherrod hadn’t come out so fast, as the narrative was developing, they wouldn’t have reported it. If the truth came out on Friday, no one would hear it.
Elie
@ET:
Perhaps a law suit by Sherrod for defamation of character would clear their minds a little…
rb
@cleek: it succeeded most impressively
Agree. Most importantly, it injected the “the NAACP is hypocritical when it comes to racism” meme into the ether.
Now any charge, no matter how legitimate, by the NAACP is instantly reduced to a he-said-she-said (i.e. something to ignore) in the minds of the average moderate-to-left-leaning viewer (the right-leaning viewers already disregarded the NAACP and similar orgs).
It’s swiftboating all the way down, and we fell for it again. What a damned shame.
J.W. Hamner
Come on… do we really need a conspiracy theory about institutional prejudice against Sherrod to explain what went down? The administration panicked and made a really dumb move… it’s not very hard to understand, even if it is really disappointing.
shortstop
@J.W. Hamner: It’s going a long way to call it a “conspiracy theory” when no one (at least no one here, and no one Allison, in her fervor to denounce what she sees as the monolithic “Left,” can name) is suggesting there was an organized drive to oust Sherrod…or saying anything other than that people’s actions, and the emotions that lead to those actions, are very often shaded by their experiences.
Hypersensitivity about Sherrod and race due to the lawsuit is very probably part of the reason the administration panicked and made a dumb move. It’s really not an either-or proposition.
Nick
@arguingwithsignposts: um, that’s what I meant
and not that the nightly news is any better than Fox, it’s just they had 30 minutes to fuck everything up instead of 24 hours
J.W. Hamner
@shortstop:
I dunno… the original comment @El Cid seems pretty conspiracy oriented… seeming to allege from my reading that they were looking for a reason to fire Sherrod. Certainly if the argument is just that the USDA has reason to be hypersensitive about charges of racism then that’s fine… but it seems people are hinting at something more sinister to me.
Tax Analyst
@Ash Can:
Yeah, that’s pretty much the way I see it, too.
I’m pretty much amazed and chagrined by all the pitiful teeth-gnashing going on in this thread. Yeah, there was a good-sized screw-up by several functionaries down the line who pushed the “panic” button, but I don’t see anything in the current state of this story that is going to move anything more than a few table settings over next to the kitchen the next time Obama drops over to the USDA to sample the gristle. The racists got thrown a big slab of red meat and they are just way too committed to slavering and tearing into it to even notice how utterly spoiled and full of festering maggots it really is, so they will chew it up and wonder later on why they all seem so dreadfully sick, but otherwise the story being presented paints Breitbart and company in a very unflattering light and I think he’s going to be looked at as somewhat damaged goods by whoever has been pulling his strings up to now . Outside of the truly rabid 20-27% his credibility has been taken down at least a couple of solid notches and I wouldn’t be surprised if this snowballs on him. It’s not like the propaganda machine proprietors couldn’t find someone equally vile and or lacking in integrity to replace him. He could easily be doing local weather forecasts or emceeing local talent night in Bumfuck, Georgia by this time next year.
mnpundit
Booman said that. It made me chuckle.
JohnR
“a good chance to recover and learn from this episode”
You really think that? I’m still not convinced that President Obama is learning on the job very quickly, and am pretty certain that his administration is very, very resistant to changing their long-ingrained habits. This is the standard Democratic response to Republican rat-fucking, after all. Things haven’t changed much since Ed Muskie got screwed, except they don’t cry in public so much. They cower like whipped dogs instead.
matoko_chan
meh.
Obama is WAI
he was bizzy with Cameron yest, and he’s signing the FinReg now.
Rick Taylor
__
This from the guy who strutted in front of Acorn offices dressed outlandishly as a pimp with a prostitute? Wow.
__
I had no idea there was so much racism in the Republican party before Breitbart showed it so clearly even I coudn’t look away.
Rick Taylor
__
And Booman is generally someone defending Obama from reflexive left-wing criticism.
not a gator
Looks like if you’re Black, you’d better not crack.
Are they firing whites who make racial gaffes? Please forward examples?
Is it one of these cases where ‘You’re one of my people and your actions reflect upon me, so I’m going to judge you more harshly?’
Full disclosure: I do the same thing. I think a lot of people do.
Mike B
On a completely unrelated note that has absolutely nothing to do with this pathetic incident or the numerous other ones like it:
I wonder why there is such an enthusiasm gap with Democratic voters.
Huh. Go figure.
Elie
@JohnR:
While I don’t disagree that this whole issue was mishandled by the administration, I don’t think that almost two years in office is that “long-ingrained” a period… Half way through his first term, he still has a few things to learn…Is that either unexpected or that horrible, really? Especially when held against his accomplishments – which are many?
Now, again, they blew this.. but lets ease up a bit in how far we want to take what that means, ok?
jj
@SGEW</The easiest way to fix this mess is to publicly fire Vilsack. Out loud and at a nationally televised press conference. And then name Sherrod as his replacement.
That would put the fear of God into the rest of the DLC GOP asskissers Rahm surrounded President Obama with, like Interior Secretary B.P.Buttboy, or whatever his name is.
jj
@jj: I don’t know what happened w/ my post, but it started out
“Obama should publicly fire Vilsack for being a reactionary dope.” Then, “That would put the fear of God into the rest of the DLC GOP asskissers Rahm surrounded President Obama with, like Interior Secretary B.P.Buttboy, or whatever his name is. “