The case centering on fired ag official Shirley Sherrod has been horribly mishandled. Secretary Tom Vilsack at USDA is the one who should go or apologize, Iowa vote regardless. This is a teaching and learning moment that cannot be fumbled away anymore.
Too many people panicked when they listened to a snippet of her speech posted by right-wing activists, and a person with a genuine and important story that needs to be heard and honored got thrown under the bus.
Letting the anti-Obama right define these issues through propagandist manipulations is a crazy, self-defeating mistake.
You cannot buy into its Alice in Wonderland narrative - - that white America is the new racial victim - - because it's false and politically-motivated, with the November and 2102 elections the real target.
Ms. Sherrod may not want her old job, so another must be made available at USDA or in another agency, but the administration has to do something today, politically and morally.
Enough.
Update: Amazingly, her story gets more compelling even as the government offers her a promotion.
watch the white farmer & his wife talking about everything that Ms Sherrod did for them.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/07/endearing_1.php#more?ref=fpblg
You just have to love how the linked Washington Post web pagee, somehow never includes Obama's name, but of course G.W. Bush's is.
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke.
As Mike Wallace pointed out today to an apparent deaf Howard Dean, the inconvenient truth is that Fox News Channel had not mention Ms. Sherrod or shown the video even once prior to her being fired.
ReplyDeleteYou would think Ms. Maddow would have checked her facts first before going after FNC.