As someone who has, on many occasions, been accused of “running amok”- I’m quite careful of throwing the word about too casually. However in the case of the Shirely Sherrod video and its amateurish aftermath, encompassing both a rush to judgment and a just as ill advised rush to reinstatement the, chicken little aspect of the administration’s response and its self-destructive behavior merits that description.
A YouTube video sent to one of Andrew Breitbart’s websites is posted and barely begins to penetrate the haze of the multi-verse that is the Internet when the Obama administration, who is clearly monitoring these conservative sites, sees the video and apparently rather than react to its bizarre statements seemingly reacts most strongly to the idea that radio and Fox news personality Glenn Beck might use the video on his show. We know this because according to the star of the videos own words on CNN, she was contacted three times by the USDA management mandarins while in her car where Mr. Beck’s name was brought up and according to her ended with her being told to “pull over and resign”.
I happened to be monitoring both news outlets at the time and know that as Ms. Sherrod was finishing her interview on CNN the Fox news anchor Megan Kelly was announcing that she was on her way to the Fox studio to give an interview in connection with her firing. This was literally minutes apart and Fox news had not ran the videotape prior to her being asked ask for her resignation or called for anyone’s resignation. During the Fox news program when it was approaching the time for Ms. Sherrod’s appearance the host announced that the guest had canceled her interview. The NAACP, who had hosted the event at which the video was extracted had already issued a rebuke and was attempting to distance themselves from the video comments, despite the fact that they had in their possession the entire speech which was later found to contain ending comments that seem to disarm the racial component of the edited version as posted by Breitbart; in the form which he had received it.
After viewing the complete video the White House became involved and decided that it clearly did not look good to have acted so precipitously in such a manner and offered to give the video’s star speaker her job back at the USDA and blame Breitbart for posting the video, Fox news for talking about the video and lastly the Secretary of Agriculture for acting precipitously. Criticism then flowed in from the left for the administration’s apparent fear of the hated Fox news network which seem to be clearly stronger than their love for MSNBC. The narrative line of the story has constantly been attempted to be changed by the administration and their angry and jealous followers of the left to somehow craft this as the fault of Fox and the Internet Beelzebub, Andrew Breitbart. This is not political shading or misspeaking on behalf of these outlets, it is simply a lie.
The driving force behind this exercise in false witness is the hope, by those on the left who are quite fearful of Fox and the millions of Americans who would like to have their news delivered in a factual manner, that the majority of people who hear the story from other sources will not be familiar with the chain of events and believe this was at best a rush to judgment and at worse a piece of spite on the part of the right.
This will not work because the information and timeline are too familiar to too many people and tracing the story down is too easy to do. In most instances this might prove to be more effective but as Americans near one of the most important elections in the country’s history, they are heavily engaged in following news and are becoming more equipped each day with ways to find whether or not it has been “reimagined”.
What’s intriguing about this story is that the video, even shown in its entirety, does not paint a flattering portrait of a government employee and this obsession on the left with redressing what they in fact inflicted upon her only draws attention to her background and prior statements which will not find much common ground or generate patriotic zeal the part of most Americans. Since most trying to perform this journalistic sleight of hand also lack that common ground with most of America they are unable to see the damage that has been done by their crude efforts and the damage yet to come by the way they’ve handled the situation.
In the end, I find the left-wing press’s obvious opinion of much of America to be insulting. It makes Hulk mad when people insult American’s intelligence… no one act like America stupid! Hulk smash!
