Careful, the Villain Changes Again!
On Monday, Andrew Breitbart put an edited video starring Shirley Sherrod on his website charging that she and the NAACP were the real racists in comparison to people in the Tea Party. The edited video cherry picked from a Sherrod speech this spring at an NAACP banquet. Fox News picked it up and piled on – just look at those hypocritical black liberals.
Quickly, the Obama Administration, not known for its deft touch when it comes to defending itself from slime throwing, panicked and asked Sherrod to resign at about the same time the NAACP threw her under the bus. The Administration was aghast at the specter of Glenn Beck doing a story about the speech that night.
Whoops, Beck did a story but it called for restraint until the emerging facts about the editing were learned. His colleagues at Fox News continued to run with the NAACP as bigoted organization story line.
Come Tuesday, the wife of the white farmer Sherrod was supposed to have treated in a bigoted manner, told CNN that Sherrod had been a lifesaver some 20 years ago and saved the couple’s farm.
Fox spun the new disclosures saying that all along it was really just telling a story about Sherrod’s audience, some of whom were applauding her telling of her decades old poor treatment of the white farmer before she realized that she was wrong. Sherrod was just an unfortunate casualty of the fight between the NAACP and the Tea Party (and the NAACP started it!).
For its part, the NAACP blamed Fox for “snookering” it. Damn right wing media!
So, the Secretary of Agriculture, falls on his sword for the Administration. “I did it on my own, the President had nothing to do with it; I dumped this poor woman and made her life a living hell. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” (Of course, Jesse Jackson has weighed in, telling reporters he demanded that the Administration apologize to Sherrod before it did so.)
Meanwhile, Bill Gibbs spins the problem, telling reporters that there is blame enough for all about acting too quickly, trying to turn the Administration’s fumbling into a “teaching moment.”
Which brings us to this morning. The Secretary of Agriculture it turns out offered Sherrod a new job at USDA, dealing with civil rights problems at the agency. Sherrod’s not too sure. While she doesn’t want an apology from the President, before she decides on the offer, she wants a sit down with him for her own “teaching moment.”
"’I'd like to talk to him about the experiences of people like me, people at the grassroots level, people who live out here in rural America people, who live in the South. I know he does not have that kind of experience,’ Sherrod said.”
Poor Obama. Now though he’s black, he needs some remedial education in being black in the South, from someone he’d never heard of until a day or so ago.
Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of “As the News Cycle Turns.”
4 comments:
Interesting take. People seem to have become a lot lazier and less diligent about fact checking.
I don't know why professional and well trained media people would pick up something like this and run with it, unverified for so long. And I think that it is ironic that it was Glen Beck who called for restraint in this case. The cynic in me wants to say he knew something was up. But the humanitarian in me thinks that he decided to rise above the noise and take a better look for himself.
Nice storytelling Uncle Dave. Can you tell us a story about Princess Palin Vs Dora the Explorer next?
One problem with the Fox spin that they were merely showing Hypocritical Black People cheering white misery is that there were no people cheering during that segment. They're covering up one lie with another, and they're likely to get away with it.
If Obama reacted to the concerns of his own base as quickly as he reacts to the concerns of his rivals, he might still be ahead in the polls.
24/7 news and declining professionalism Mark.
I don't think I could stand the research Debo. Palin or Dora.
Obama's biggest flaw is that he wants us "all to just get along" even if it means accomplishing little Thomas. He's a mediator, not a leader.
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