Barack Obama claims that Tom Vilsack acted too quickly on Shirley Sherrod
We all know the story by now; Shirley Sherrod was captured on video admitting that she refused to help a white farmer who was going to lose his farm because of his color. The Obama regime forced Shirley Sherrod to resign, but in light of more video evidence, there is the possibility that the Obama regime acted stupidly when it requested Shirley Sherrod resign before they knew all the facts in the case.
With the new video evidence that may or may not exonerate Shirley Sherrod, the Obama regime was forced make an embarrassing reversal. Tom Vilsack eventually took responsibility for her firing, and offered to rehire Shirley Sherrod to a new job (presumably a promotion designed to shut her up.)
Today Barack Obama called Shirley Sherrod personally to apologize to her. But he also threw Tom Vilsack under the bus when he claimed that Tom Vilsack “jumped the gun” when he called for Shirley Sherrod’s resignation.
He jumped the gun, partly because we now live in this media culture where something goes up on YouTube or a blog and everybody scrambles
In light of Barack Obama’s recent claim that information has become a diversion for Americans, and that Americans have access to too much information which puts a burden on our democracy (republic), and in light of the fact that during the campaign he claimed that Americans sometimes get confused and watch the wrong television stations, I find this comment a little scary for it keeps in tune with a general premise that seems to permeate the Obama White House.
The new media has given us unprecedented coverage of politicians and Barack Obama does not like that one bit. So once again he rails against the fact that the internet was the conduit that allowed thousands of Americans access to this information, seeming to place the blame for Shirley Sherrod’s comments on the site that uploaded the video rather than on the person making the comments.
While it appears as if Shirley Sherrod not only will not be held accountable for what she said, she was offered a promotion in the wake of the controversy she started while the man that exposed what she said– Andrew Breitbart– may be held accountable for exposing what she said.
Having said all of that, I want to get on to what the topic of this post was supposed to be about before I got carried away. And that topic is the fact that– in addition to crying about the internet– Barack Obama is throwing Tom Vilsack under the bus because he claimed that Vilsack over-reacted to the situation at hand. Tom Vilsack is being a good soldier by admitting that he is the one who made the call to ask Shirley Sherrod to tender her resignation.
But there is still the accusation out there by Shirley Sherrod herself that Barack Obama’s White House called her two times and demanded that she tender her resignation immediately on her Blackberry– to which she complied.
They called me twice,” Sherrod told the AP, noting that she was driving when she received the calls. “The last time they asked me to pull over the side of the road and submit my resignation on my Blackberry, and that’s what I did.
According to Shirley Sherrod, it was the Obama regime who called her repeatedly to demand her resignation– not Tom Vilsack, as the Obama regime would like you to think. (Again, too much information for Barack Obama’s liking.)
Barack Obama sees this as a teachable moment, claiming that we can all learn from this:
If there’s a lesson to be drawn from this episode, it’s that rather than us jumping to conclusions and pointing fingers at each other, we should all look inward and try to examine what’s in our own hearts
I find it funny how the man that points his finger at the Bush administration at every chance he can get suddenly does not want fingers pointed when they end up pointed at him! It seems to me that Barack Obama could learn a little something if he just followed his own advice.
Now Barack Obama is pointing the finger at Tom Vilsack, instead of looking inward to see what is in his own heart.
Barack Obama is claiming that the decision to fire Shirley Sherrod was Tom Vilsack’s decision: Tom Vilsack is claiming that he was under no pressure from the administration to fire Shirley Sherrod: and Shirley Sherrod is claiming that it was indeed the Obama regime that forced her to tender her resignation on the side of the road by using her Blackberry.
Someone is lying here and I think that I know who it is.
America's Watchtower 
Our commander in chief appears to be the coward in chief
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Ms. Sherrod’s talk was classic religious testimony – “I was bad, then I became good.”
Can’t you see that?
And you defend Breitbart, who purposely only showed that part of the video that showed her describing the bad, and hiding the rest, where she explained how she realized she was doing wrong, and what she did to ameliorate it?
I understand O’Reilly has apologized, and I heard Herman Cain apologize. Savage seems to be still out in the wilderness, but what’s clear is that Breitbart got caught doing something wrong – just like that dude with the Acorn video – and the con universe is running about like chickens with their heads cut off.
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I don’t think I defended Breitbart.
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Well, in the light of day, your remark is much less defensive of poor Andrew than it seemed last night. I still think it could be interpreted that way, but if your intent was not to defend him, fine.
Interesting sidebar – because Mr. Sherrod was involved in the discrimination case against SBA in which that agency admitted wrongdoing and paid a cash settlement, she’s been called a “racial shakedown artist.”
She seems like a nice enough lady who learned an important lesson 24 years ago. I think it’s shameful that people were so willing to ruin her life today because of it. I’ve been saying for a while now that the President’s staff are among his worst enemies; he’s got to clean house.
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My comment on Breitbart was meant to highlight Barack Obama’s disdain for the new media in general. I was trying to use this as the latest example of Barack Obama lamenting the fact that everything that politicians say nowadays is going to appear on the internet somewhere.
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I’ll defend Breitbart. The NAACP accused Tea Parties generally of racism by not “repudiating” racist elements enough. So Breitbart released a tape of an NAACP audience actually laughing at (forget about repudiating) a story of blatant racism.
It’s important to note they laughed before reaching the moral of the story, (that class warfare is important, not race warfare. so she’s a marxist instead of a racist, oh that’s much better)
‘Spose you can say that Breitbart left Sherrod to the wolves by releasing the edited tape. But the NAACP subsequently released the whole thing.
Why didn’t the administration ask the NAACP for the whole tape before passing judgment? How can they argue with a straight face that they relied on the veracity of folks like Breitbart and Fox, when they continually claim these folks aren’t real news, not real journalists, etc?
Cheers all
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Breitbart’s been flinging his spun version ever since his duplicity was exposed. Here’s how he introduced the tape on his website Monday:
“We are in possession of a video from in which Shirley Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, speaks at the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia. In her meandering speech to what appears to be an all-black audience, this federally appointed executive bureaucrat lays out in stark detail, that her federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions.”
His narrative makes it appear that she’s talking about how she conducts herself in the present, as a functionary of the US government, rather than about an episode a quarter-century ago that was instrumental in helping her overcome her own racial prejudices.
He’s backpedaled and is now whimpering about how misunderstood he is, all he was doing was pointing out how the audience responded positively to her story of treating someone badly.
Breitbart got caught and can’t bring himself to admit it. At best, he proved himself to be so unprofessional that he couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to a ten-minute videotape that he used to accuse someone of possibly criminal acts, changing her life forever. At worst, he deliberately lied to an audience he knows trusts him, and now counts on them to believe his weaselly excuses and justifications.
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Nooneofanyimport does make a good point about the reaction of the NAACP, they were laughing at her comments before she reached the moral of the story, thusly agreeing with her comments about not helping a person because he was white. If the situation was reversed the organization in question would have been taken to the woodshed by the media.
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Breitbart, whimpering? uh, no. sounds like some spin of your own. Sherrod, a nice lady? Dunno personally, but have a look at this:
http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2010/07/23/shirley-she-cant-be-serious/
I like the quote from J. Goldberg:
“I see. So Shirley Sherrod, who didn’t know who Andrew Breitbart was 72 hours ago, now knows him well enough to say that he wants to put all blacks back into slavery. If I were David Axelrod, I’d be calling this woman and beg her to stop talking. And, yes, she does owe Andrew an apology.”
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My point is that Breitbart acted unprofessionally in targeting Sherrod, and instead of manning up, he’s circling the wagons, backpedaling and spinning the story so that now he’s claiming he was really illustrating prejudice in the audience.
And any attempt by the woman whose job was lost and life changed because of Breitbart’s unprofessionalism to defend herself is met with the mocking disdain with which elements of the rightwing extreme have tainted the cause of conservatism everywhere. So she called him a racist – big deal, she’s certainly not alone in her assessment. As to Breitbart’s inclusion of blacks on his program, that certainly doesn’t absolve him of either the charge of unprofessionalism, or the charge of bigotry.
What’s also breathtaking to observe, though, is the way some of the rightwing pundits continue to insist that Sherrod’s statements to that NAACP gathering were triumphant declarations of how currently conducted herself in her DOA job in a racist manner. I couldn’t stomach Savage the other night and turned him iff, it was so sickening. This illustrates the contempt in which people like Savage hold their listeners, by continuing to feed them lies when the truth has already been made clear.
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Wait – Breitbart hit hit with a metaphoric two-by-four, and she calls him a mugger, and now SHE owes HIM an apology?
You’re kidding, right?
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ha ha, no. I am totally. Not. Kidding. Sherrod’s claim that Breitbart wants to go back to the days of slavery is ridiculous.
I do try to be fair. So here: Breitbart was sloppy. But the only “back pedaling” by Breitbart is the addition of a one-sentence correction to his original release. A plain reading of the original release demonstrates that the NAACP’s disingenuous race-baiting was the main point. Sherrod was just a bonus.
http://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/2010/07/19/video-proof-the-naacp-awards-racism2010/
More fairness: I do feel sympathy for Sherrod, in that the video clips made her personally look worse than she really was. That does suck. Breitbart was careless in his characterization of her, by mixing her past with her present.
But the White House is the one that actually swung the rhetorical two-by-four.
Whew! Enough outta me. Feel free to have the last word if you are inclined.
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Those who rushed to judgement, and despite her pleas to hear her out, fired Sherrod are the culprits here. Sherrod was very clear on CNN that she was was contacted 3 times with messages from the White House calling for her to step down immediately. She was even pulled over enroute to Washington with urgent White House instructions to resign because ‘she was going to be on Glenn Beck that afternoon’. She expressed her hurt that she was judged without her side being heard.
It appears that the government will try to use this incident as a way to punish free speech.
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Wxactly, yet Barack Obama is trying to deflect them blame, and the media is ignoring the part of the story where the White House is where the call for her resignation came from.
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No doubt, but I don’t know if you’re aware how many on the right blasted her and were only dimly aware of her audience. For a troubling read, check out the hannity.com forums where hundreds of comments said she should have been fired, even when they knew that the statement in question took place 24 years ago, and even, apparently, after learning that it was part of a speech encouraging people to look beyond their racial prejudices and act like brothers and sisters.
As to the administration, I’ve already mentioned that some of Obama’s biggest enemies are on his staff. He needs to clean house and find some people who really want to work with him, not against him.
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Tom Vilsack acted too quickly on Shirley Sherrod… And by Obama standards, probably acted *stupidly*… Just sayin’…
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Figures. Doesn’t matter to Obama that Vilsack already threw himself under the bus, Barry has to back over him a few more times? I guess all of us have that heart of stone, but he is the POTUS!
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If he would throw grammy under the bus he would throw anyone under the bus.
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“We the People” by the Sons of Liberty
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Hi Andy, great song! And yes we are coming and we will be heard from. And you will be heard from for the first time this November. As a member of the newest generation of voters it is so important for you to get involved in the process.
By the way, how is school going? You are doing your homework right? 🙂
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Yep I’m learning scales and arpeggios and stuff that I have to memorize.
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I think both sides were wrong in fireing Sherrod. I think the fact wasn’t looked at before the decision was made. I feel the that this information was misunderstood. Since it was taken the wrong way it turned into hot gossip that spreaded wildly and caused a good woman to lose her job. Which she worked hard to get. Being the first black to get this job is an hornor! Jobs are so hard now all because the last president Bush who is white. But now we have a president who is of color any trying to get us back to where we need to be, but no one is saying anything when Bush put us where we are now!
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In fairness, the President really hasn’t got much control over the economy, except to use his bully pulpit and work with his party to enact legislation. If Presidential desire was all that mattered, we’d have been at full employment since the adoption of the Constitution!
However, the President certainly gets blamed or credited for the quality of the economy, even if he can’t control it very well.
As to Breitbart, he was wrong to attack Sherrod when (as he claims) his intent was to show that the NAACP is wrong to accuse the Tea Party of racism (or, more properly, bigotry, since neither the Tea Party people nor the NAACP has shown any racist behavior or said anything racist). By saying that she described how she performed her present-day duties for teh government in a racist manner, when he edited the video to cut out the proof that he was wrong, makes Breitbart a liar in my book. Nevertheless, by this time next week, the incident will be forgotten and Breitbart’s career will continue unblemished. For those wondering why Breitbart wasn’t treated as harshly as Dan Rather when he unprofessionally ran with false material, apparently because it supported his personal opinion, remember that Rather was a journalist, and Breitbart is an entertainer.
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For what it’s worth… If the phone calls Sherrod received that demanded her resignation came from Vilsack’s office, and Vilsack (Sec. of Agriculture) is part of the Executive branch, maybe that’s why Sherrod characterized them as coming “from the White House”?
Not trying to excuse anyone for jumping the gun or shifting blame. Just sayin’…
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