Wednesday, July 21, 2010

My quick take on the NAACP/Tea Party/Shirley Sherrod drama

Okay, I'm going to try to explain this NAACP/Tea Party/Shirley Sherrod drama.

Days ago, Andrew Brietbart the Tea bagger and blogger from BigGovernment.com. posted this clip on Shirley Sherrod. He pushed this as Shirley using her government job to foster racism.

Well, Agriculture Department saw this and later asked for her to resign. NAACP also saw this and supported her resignation. Mind y'all, this happened in a matter of couple of days.

Later today, Andrew Brietbart continued to push this clip, claiming that NAACP also supported racism. He even went on CNN talking this mess.


Well, guess what? That clip was wrong. The real, full video was released. She was talking about her past and how she moved on from racism. See here:


Yes, that son of bitch Brietbart had an edited version and claimed this to be completely true. However, it was obvious it was carefully edited.

Now the media folks are taking note of this foolishness. The NAACP released this statement:

With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias.

Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans.

The fact is Ms. Sherrod did help the white farmers mentioned in her speech. They personally credit her with helping to save their family farm.

Interesting. Now everybody's scrambling to fix this mess. Hopefully, Shirley will get her job back, but it is clear to me that Andrew Brietbart is a dirty bastard.

more to come

5 comments:

Marc said...

But it leaves the White House & the NAACP looking like that react without even basic fact checking that would have revealed the truth. Ms. Sherrod reported that the WH was pushing her to resign before the story aired on GLENN BECK! Reinforcing the idea that they're jumping scared of Fox & Beck.

Several reporters commented this morning that they know to carefully vet things that people just hand to them because of the ease of manipulation by amateurs.

Marc

Stan said...

Rachel Maddow questioned last night as to why the WH was so quick to take the bait? Like Rachel said who will Fox target next? (and sure as hell there will be more targets from these slimeballs.)

Greg said...

I wonder is Sherrod can sue Breitbart and the Tea Bags for libel?

Kyle Leach said...

V, great outline of events. She deserves vindication.

kayman said...

Greg, the DOJ is currently investigating charging him of "internet harassment" and "defamation of character". I wouldn't be surprised that she doesn't sue him for libel as well...

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Viktor is a small town southern boy living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter, writing about pop culture, politics, and comics. He’s the creator of the graphic novel StrangeLore and currently getting back into screenwriting.