Fox News, Glenn Beck and the Sherrod Fiasco- Part II
Who would have thought that in the Sherrod fiasco Glenn Beck would come out on top? Whatever one thinks of Beck’s style, his beliefs and his program, he acted carefully and responsibly in this matter. On his radio program, Beck said the following:
We didn’t rush to condemn her. This is another seemingly “redistribution of wealth” woman — who I would bet that I vehemently disagree with on probably everything. But she asked for the rest of the tape to be heard, the farmers in the story backed her up. It was a turning point story. We defended her and said her side of the story demanded to be heard — because context matters.
The TV talk show host- detested by liberals and leftists-went on to explain that it was the Obama administration that acted precipitously by firing her, without waiting to see the entire video or questioning Sherrod about it.
Beck quoted what USDA official Cheryl Cook had told Sherrod: “They want you to pull over to the side of the road and do it because you’re going to be on Glenn Beck tonight.” But Beck told his audience on Thursday night that he had had no plans to broadcast the video, or for that matter, report on it until he had more information. He went to on actually praise her for having a “pivot point” that allowed her to transcend the racial paradigm which at one point in her life she may have followed; not surprising, given the Klan murder of her own father.
Also standing out on Fox News is their in-house liberal and former civil rights activist, Juan Williams. Writing on the Fox website today, Williams asked the essential question: “How is it possible that the first black president of the United States, under pressure for alleged reverse discrimination against whites at the Justice Department, fires a black Agriculture Department official for telling a story of racial redemption?”
Williams goes on to ask how the President could act so quickly without pausing to ascertain the facts, and how it was possible that the once great NAACP was pushing him to fire Sherrod “on a charge of racism without checking to be sure she was a hateful racist? And the NAACP had the full tape, the full facts before they went after her.”
It was the White House and the civil rights group, not the Right-wing, that in Williams’ words, acted “on the basis of an Internet video maliciously edited to intentionally distort the woman’s speech?” And he adds, how is it that they acted out of fear that Glenn Beck would use the video on his program, as if Beck had become what Williams calls “the czar of White House race relations.”
Williams believes that the administration was acting out of fear when they moved so quickly to fire her. In their rush to judgment, they were seeking “political cover” for any charges of racism made against them by the political Right. But everyone, he says, the White House, the NAACP, whoever edited the tape, and Breitbart’s website, has “political dirt and racial guilt all over their hands.” Race-baiters like Al Sharpton and David Duke, he writes, “must be smiling.”
It should come as no surprise that the Left is trying to hold their favorite bogyman Fox News responsible for the mess. Despite numerous requests, Sherrod has refused to go on Fox News, singling it out as if the network alone had acted badly. In fact, if you look at the timeline, the network only reported on the incident after the NAACP condemned her and the Administration asked for her resignation. And yet, the Left, led by Media Matters.com, is trying to use the incident to attack Fox News. Shirley Sherrod was a victim, made out to be a black racist, an unjust and harmful slander against her. But that does not make her a saint or a prophet, whose advice on politics has to be taken as gospel by any of us. That she is willing to use her current fame to try and join the campaign to isolate and demean Fox News is itself both wrong and shameful.
It almost behooves Sherrod to sue Breitbart (she has alot of money from just “winning” another suit) if for no other reason than to find out who is leaking all the “tapes” B says he has showing racism at the NAACP. Second question, who edited it? Did someone lay a trap for Breitbart which the White House then fell into?
Mr. Radosh:
shorter Juan Williams:
“But everyone, he says, the White House, the NAACP, whoever edited the tape, and Breitbart’s website, has “political dirt and racial guilt all over their hands.” ”
And you close:
“That she is willing to use her current fame to try and join the campaign to isolate and demean Fox News is itself both wrong and shameful.”
Does this mean that you are retracting your demand that Andrew Breitbart issue somebody an apology?
And STILL no-one has addressed the demonstrated fact of the racism of the NAACP audience that was Breitbart’s point
Is Eric Holder right?
Are you too cowardly to have an honest discussion about race and call out racists, (even Black ones), when you see them?
What do you owe the NAACP?
All that aside, I hope it is not lost on you or the rest of us, just how utterly feckless and totally clueless this Odministration
and it’s vaunted political operation really is.
They cannot even gather accurate intelligence on what Glenn Beck is going to be airing…but they think they’ve got their finger on the country’s pulse?
Wipe-out in 2010, and History in 2012.
“The One” is laying the foundations for himself to be “the ONLY One”!
The Obama administration’s jumpy and inappropriate reaction turned this whole thing into a theater of the absurd play. Just as absurdly, people here are falling over themselves to defend Breitbart, even though he clearly screwed up. Obviously we should expect more of Obama than we do of Breitbart; hence the Obama side is more unsettling.
In the bigger picture, liberals think that Fox stirs the racial agenda pot with the stories they push, and yes, Fox does do that and they know that they do it. Did the NAACP folks show affirmation, rather than gasp, when Shirley went into the “I screwed the white guy part” of her story? Yes they did, and we all know that they do that. Even though this is now an absurd play, maybe some good can finally come of it, but given the deeply engrained hot buttons, habits, and resentments of both sides, it isn’t likely. Did we finally learn anything from the events leading up to the beer summit? Maybe that both sides can screw up and then make up without violence. It’s a low bar, for sure; we muddle onward.
- … people here are falling over themselves to defend Breitbart, even though he clearly screwed up.
Dwight, this is the part you simply refuse to consider: there is no “clearly” here. You and folks like Radosh keep claiming that Breitbart “screwed up”, but the problem is that there is no evidence whatsoever to support that notion. So what you mistake for defense of Breitbart is actually a just rejection of your claim.
This is no different from what happened back when the left floated the falsehood about Bush “lying us into war” via the famous “16 words”. Facts known then and now prove that he did not lie, yet the left persisted in these accusations over and over through its various media mouthpieces, to the point where it became a self-perpetuating meme all on its own. Refutation of those accusations was not a “defense” of Bush, it was the repudiation of a lie promulgated by the left.
It’s really no different here.
Breitbart published a video excerpt supplied by a source specifically because it showed visual evidence of the NAACCCP’s hypocrisy in attacking the Tea Party. He reported the video as such, never attacking Sherrod personally or calling for her resignation – even though both the excerpts AND the full-length video show beyond a doubt that she is clearly obsessed with race and utterly unfit to be controlling hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars. How you go from that to “he clearly screwed up” is a complete mystery. And it’s not necessary to defend Breitbart in order to make that observation.
“Shirley Sherrod was a victim, made out to be a black racist”
Shirley Sherrod candidly admittedly that she provided the white farmer with her second best efforts. That she later gave him a little more help is mildly interesting—but does not change the fact she initially behaved in a racist manner. Sherrod currently employs the race card in a highly vicious manner. She is no saint, and a number of gullible people were too quick to cut her undeserved slack.
I also don’t fault Andrew Breitbart in the slightest. He released what he had at the time. This is the norm for the journalistic community. Does anybody really believe that a news reporter normally feels obligated to listen to the whole talk before posting a selected number of provocative quotes? Breitbart very cautiously explained what the tape contained. He strongly emphasized the disgusting response of the audience.
When the story becomes black racism it’s panic time. By the way, the first release of the video included her switch from have a racist attitude (in this case) to a socialist attitude. The White House and it’s media helpers had to make her the victim and Breitbart the bad guy. Not working. She continues with race hustling rants against Fox News who had nothing to do with her outing herself or getting her fired. The NAACP audience still laughs and applauds her racist comments. Let’s not discuss that.
#4 wrote “When the story becomes black racism it’s panic time. By the way, the first release of the video included her switch from have a racist attitude (in this case) to a socialist attitude.”
I don’t think so; otherwise you are saying that O’Reilly, Vilsack, and all the others
simply ignored her change of heart. That makes no sense, so I really don’t know what you could be talking about.
- Shirley Sherrod was a victim, made out to be a black racist, an unjust and harmful slander against her. But that does not make her a saint or a prophet, whose advice on politics has to be taken as gospel by any of us. That she is willing to use her current fame to try and join the campaign to isolate and demean Fox News is itself both wrong and shameful.
If you’d bothered to watch the entire video, and listened carefully to Sherrod’s numerous references to race, black, white, “their kind”, etc., indicating that she is still very much living in 1865, you would have realized that the above is not inconsistent at all.
Sherrod was hardly a victim. She spewed race-hustling, class-baiting rhetoric that is no different from the crap we get from people like Jackson and Sharpton. And she continues to do so using her newfound celebrity wherever she’s got a mic in her face.
Sherrod was honored by the NAACCCP because she is a demonstrated racist to the very core who believes that her marxist “enlightenment” – stealing from the taxpayers to pay off those she deems ‘worthy’ – absolves her of the race-obsession she still clearly harbors. In this she espouses a broken ethic that is in lock-step with the policies being implemented by our race-hustling government.
I completely agree with your assessment. Shirley Sherrod is a nasty piece of work. This is someone who does not hesitate in the least to employ the race card. Her slandering of Andrew Breitbart is morally repulsive. She definitely want to bring down what she considers to be the white capitalist power structure. It is very fair to describe her minimally as mildly Marxist. She was fairly clear in the 43 minute speech concerning her class warfare mindset.
Sherrod claims that her father was murdered by a white man. This could be very well true—but what evidence is there to support such a conclusion?
p.s. Dwight – that wasn’t intended as a reply to you. I clearly hit the “Reply” link to do so, but didn’t back out of it after I changed my mind.
Gonzo slander goes viral. That’s my take on the situation in a nutshell, Ron.
The left comes to a tactical decision that it needs to create a slander that might stick against the Tea Party.
It chooses from among its six standard weapons of choice, (racism, homophobia, class warfare, warmongering, faith based value propositions or religiosity, [Judeo-Christian values only however], and the generic “ignorance” factor, since all non-leftists are not nuanced, educated or literate, don’t you know).
They chose racism as the trump card in this particular shuffle of the drek.
The NAACP took up the point position, to give the gonzo slander an air of “respectability” and a little more “weight”, since they are an organization mandated with identifying and seeking remedy for such things. It “announced” with pomp and fanfare the “finding” of “theirs” that indeed the Tea Party as a whole…was racist.
Understand, Ron…in Gonzo Slander, facts are servants to the narrative. Truth is a trifling thing.
Since the Tea Party has picked up some palpable steam and represents a very real threat to rampant and unchecked leftism, AND…it doesn’t have an easy target to personalize or hone in on and pin a bullseye on its back, it needed to be lynched, JournoKlan style…as a whole.
Gonzo Slander being what it is, (please see numerous tweets from its sub rosa Planning Committee at JournoList), the ANNOUNCEMENTS of the NAACP utilizing the Gonzo Slander…were “newsworthy”. Therefore, in a “We have plausible denial” methodology, the employers of the tweeters at the planning committee for the viral spread of Gonzo Slander…must…MUST…report on how the NAACP “views the Tea Party”.
Ahhh. So, the “no, we’re not” defense is overpowered by the viral process.
The best tactic after being gonzo slandered? Show the “point” person as a hypocrite. Voila! The NAACP tape, with Sherrod saying that she was going to send this old, white farmer the back of her hand. Send him to “one of his own”.
And, the very receptive response by the audience. (bringing to mind, for some…the wild cheering and applause by some at the conclusion of the OJ verdict)
In the gonzo world, context…the complete facts…are subservient to the narrative.
The NAACP audience is NOT shown agreeing with redemption or a rise of consciousness…they are shown agreeing with being openly hostile to whites.
THAT point…the ONLY point being made in the gonzo response, is the only relevant one AS A RESPONSE.
If Sherrod’s kneejerk racism has abated, it is simply not part of the narrative. Since we are treated to all gonzo/all the time “journalism” from the mass market media, their crocodile tears over someone else doing it, is a bit disingenuous.
The NAACP’s crocodile tears that they have been “snookered” is completely disingenuous.
Sherrod got caught in the crossfire. Her attacks on Fox are a bit on the gonzo side themselves. Everyone in the information stream these days is either a victim or purveyor of the gonzo slander.
Until we decide as a culture, as a nation, that facts matter, that truth matters…we are all victims. Because we can’t self-govern this land of ours based upon a pack of vile lies and abject slander.
We all suffer. And Gonzo Slander has gone viral.
Mr. Radosh:
I commented on this in the previous blog post, but the fact of the matter is that Shirley Sherrod’s statement IS racist. Not because of the excerpt that was taken out of context, but because of the context itself! If you listen to the rest of the speech, see specifically attacks Tea Party supporters of being racist for being against the health care bill, as well as the usual diatribe of attacking the 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency.
Ironically, the balance of the speech is ignored by the non-media when it would specifically indict Ms. Sherrod and support Mr. Breitbart’s position. That’s the litmus test; if it’s out of context, then let’s hear the entire speech and judge for ourselves. Just like the whining Journolisters who claim the same thing. I don’t see them rushing to publish the entire transcripts of the messages so we can see the context.
Hypocrisy thy name is liberal.
Two points here Ron, the first is that like everything else the Obama White House does, there are only two words for it, Amateur Hour.
Secondly, when Ms. Sherrod did her little song and dance before that NAACP audience, as can be heard on the video tape, several members of that audience actually expressed satisfaction with Ms. Sherrod’s racist reaction to the white farmer. And that is the point, the NAACP audience approved of racist behavior when it is done by a Black to a White.
Okay, here comes the PROFESSIONAL opinion: I spent many a year in the “Two Shop”. I suggest you pay attention as nobody has ever bought the farm because I gave them the wrong scoop.
Andrew Breitbart was targeted. Perhaps because of his standing offer of a $100G reward to anybody who can prove that an alleged racial incident actually occurred. However, he proved to be his own worst enemy. Having received from an unknown source a tape of unknown quality, he failed to evaluate either the source or the information. He took what is called F-6 and treated it as B-2. When that ass u mption proved incorrect, he went into denial and claimed everything was in fact (an impossible) A-1. He saw something that appealed to his emotions and proceeded in an irresponsible manner.
I daresay that whoever doctored and sent the tape knows PSYOP very well and correctly anticipated what Breitbart would do.
The unanticipated development was the way the White House and then the NAACP hit the panic button. And that is the only thing saving our side from a big, concocted black eye and a loss of capabilities that could prove irreversible.
Ron is right. Beck was the only completely cool head throughout the matter.
For having enabled the enemy, Andrew Breitbart needs about 30 days in the LBJ plus the loss of two stripes. Might inspire him to remove his third point of contact from his fifth.
So… whoever “doctored” the video is such an expert at PsyOps that s/he managed to divine something that would be obvious to a stick of gum (i.e., that Breitbart would publish the video, as provided… no sh!t), but had no frakking clue what the transparently thin-skinned White House and the perpetually paranoid NAACCCP would do?
Kahn, I’m laughing at the “PROFESSIONAL” opinion.
Ron is full of it because – like most people – he never bothered to read Breitbart’s original post. Conversely, Breitbart knew where this was going to go, and said as much.
Evidently, reading Breitbart’s original post is the equivalent of seeing the burning bush in the desert and hearing a voice. No wait! It is Saul on the road to Damascus, when suddenly…… you were blinded. OK, got it.
- …reading Breitbart’s original post is the equivalent of seeing the burning bush in the desert…
Is that what you really believe?
Because no one else is making such a stupid claim in an effort to deflect from the reality here.
Your problem all along – and Ron’s – has been that you want to simply discount and/or ignore the original reporting on this. In your case it’s because you never had any interest in educating yourself, so you never bothered to read it, and you’re afraid to look like a cretin as a result. So instead of admitting that you were just being intellectually lazy – just like the NAACCCP and the White House – you prefer to run with the slander and libel ABOUT that reporting, which followed after the fact.
There’s nothing misleading, libelous or malicious about the original report Breitbart posted. The videos included in that report make ALL the relevant facts clear. The two most significant of these were that (a) the NAACCCP members listening to Sherrod’s self-congratulatory diatribe were clearly approving of her past racist actions and (b) the context of her diatribe was her “enlightenment” from mindless racist to mindless marxist.
That report was what led the NAACCCP to demonize Sherrod. That report was what led to the White House forcing her resignation. THOSE two events were the actual news, not Breitbart’s original post. Everything else – including FNC’s broadcast about the story – was after the fact. Everything else – including the NAACCCP’s retraction and the White House backpedaling – was DAMAGE CONTROL, intended to create the impression in YOUR mind that this entire affair was somehow Breitbart’s “fault” and that he should apologize for having the temerity to publish proof of the NAACCCP’s racism and hypocrisy. Clearly, their media manipulation has worked on you. Some of the rest of us aren’t nearly so credulous or naive.
But here’s the thing. It turns out that Sherrod really is a raging, racist lunatic and an unrepentant marxist. Race dominates every aspect of her rhetoric and as such she has NO business whatsoever holding responsibility over the distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money. It also turns out that the NAACCCP really is a racist organization which has no business commenting on the Tea Party or any other aspect of American politics. ALL of that was revealed by Breitbart’s report.
So, again, what exactly is it that Breitbart is supposed to apologize for… other than bursting your widdle bubble and proving to the world that you could care less about the facts as long as your prejudices are served?
Yeah, you are blinded, all right. You keep saying the same thing over and over. You are the quintessential example of someone sticking to the view within their own microcosm, ignoring what is happening in the bigger picture.
You simply keep repeating your view is that Breitbart’s statement trumps the larger scenario…or that it SHOULD to people who are not intellectually lazy, blah, blah; whatever perjorative you want to come up with.
I have given you many specifics on the bigger picture and why it goes beyond WHATEVER Breitbart wote. You consistently retreat to “read his original statement” as if that were going to change how the country reacted. Do you really think that is how things work; that once people state their “intentions,” that the repercussion cannot go BEYOND their stated intentions? C’mon; you know that just ain’t so. That’s not intellectual laziness, that is willful eyes pressed shut.
I thank there is a very good possibility that Shirley Sherrod is known by her superiors as a loose cannon. Her mouth probably gets her into constant trouble. Also, does she possess a vivid imagination? Does she make up things? The Obama administration seems to be hiding Mrs. Sherrod from public view. She apparently is no longer giving interviews. The woman’s slanderous attack on Andrew Breitbart should not be ignored. It revealed something very yucky about her.
Well, I’m not up on what “slander” Shirley has put forth against Breitbart, but I can only imagine what you and I would be saying about a guy who posted a video of us, which got us called by our bosses while we were on the road, fired, etc. because he neglected (or refused) to include another 30 seconds of the clip, which would have kept us from becoming Exhibit A of all that has since transpired.
Certainly, I would not be shocked if Shirley is a bit of a loose cannon (I’m not prepared to pontificate on “yucky” yet); I’ll wait on that until she matches Breitbart’s fiasco of a presentation. Hell, they’d probably be hiding you and me, if something similar had been done to us. In your case it would be shielding the public from the guy who kept on ranting uncontrollably about the list of 3,000 incompetent Ivy League graduates running the Federal Government…beginning with the Supreme Court.
@Dwight: - You keep saying the same thing over and over.
And apparently I’ll have to continue to do so until you recognize that your criticisms and expectations are all based on other people’s opinions about, reactions to and misrepresentations of what Breitbart did, rather than what he actually did.
- You simply keep repeating your view is that Breitbart’s statement trumps the larger scenario…
Wow, talk about being blinded!! WHAT larger scenario???
Do you mean the NAACCCP’s conscious, knee-jerk choice to demonize Sherrod before they viewed the full tape they had in their possession (which didn’t exonerate her in any case)??
Do you mean the White House’s conscious, knee-jerk choice to demand Sherrod’s resignation because they were terrified of the political cost that might result from a story about her on Beck??
Do you mean the NAACCCP’s ham-handed retraction when they finally figured out an angle they could use to blame Breitbart for their own error (they were “snookered”???? are you effing kidding me??? THEY HAD THE FULL VIDEO!!!).
Do you mean the White House’s Keystone Kops attempt to cover up their own incompetence when they tried to retract their initial demand for Sherrod’s resignation? Their decision to offer Sherrod a “promotion”??
Do you really think you can hold Breitbart accountable for ANY of that??? If so, I’m here to tell you that you’re delusional. Those choices were all consciously made by the principals involved. Breitbart had NO power over those decisions.
So no, there IS no “larger scenario”. There is Breitbart’s initial report and then there’s what happened afterward – actions that the NAACCCP and White House FREELY CHOSE to take based on their knee-jerk response to what they FEARED might result from what they saw on Breitbart’s site.
You can’t rationally blame their choices on Breitbart, especially when – again, since you’re clearly trying to avoid the fact – he provided ALL of the relevant facts in his original report. A report which you likely STILL have not bothered to read.
Here’s the problem. You can’t blame the messenger. It really is that simple. People reacted to what they heard according to their own assumptions, preconceived notions, prejudices, ignorance, fears and/or motives AND depending upon the version of the story they heard, and when.
You want to pretend you can blame the damage on Breitbart in some way. But no matter how big a picture you want to paint here, the blame doesn’t fall on him in any way, nor does it amount to anything he needs to apologize for, and you have yet to make any semblance of a case to the contrary. In fact, the bigger the picture gets, the further it gets away from his actions, depending more on the various independent choices made BY OTHERS in response to those actions. So your latest attempt to blame the messenger defeats itself.
Here, I guess these are the lines you must be talkng about:
“In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn’t do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from “one of his own kind”. She refers him to a white lawyer.”
Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups’ racial tolerance.”
Evidently to your mind, this is the commentary which excuses the fact that he did NOT show or comment upon the fact THAT THE POINT OF HER COMMENTARY WAS THAT SHE LEARNED TO GET PAST HER RACISM!! Breitbart knew that if he had showed that, or even just commented that it had happened, it would have undercut the effect that he wanted. He settled for, “Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from “one of his own kind”. She refers him to a white lawyer.” He knows and you know that this does NOT capture the point that she makes in the next 30 seconds of the tape.
Then you ask, how could Breitbart have known that showing the truncated tape, which excluded the redemptive part would get Sherrod in trouble. That makes about as much sense as an arsonist saying, I just wanted the fire to burn a little, so I just disabled the sprinklers in the first room; how was I to know that they had gasoline illegally stored in the next room? Evidently, that explanation would be perfectly convincing to you.
- …he did NOT show or comment upon the fact THAT THE POINT OF HER COMMENTARY WAS THAT SHE LEARNED TO GET PAST HER RACISM!!
That’s just it – as I have been explaining all along, he did exactly what you’re claiming he did not do. You – and people like Radosh – simply refuse to acknowledge it.
Obviously, no matter how many different ways I try to explain this, you’re going to plead stupidity because your mind is made up and you just refuse to see what is right in front of your face. Clearly, you didn’t actually watch the two videos posted at BigGovernment.com on the morning of the 19th.
So here, try this. Starting around 0:45, James Rosen explains – for the vision-, hearing- and otherwise perceptually-impaired – exactly the myth you’re talking about:
So the videos as originally posted provided ALL of the relevant facts needed to understand the purpose of Sherrod’s little tale and the audience’s racist reaction. If Breitbart had wanted to make Sherrod look as bad as possible – if he were really the “arsonist” you’re desperately and pathetically trying to make him out to be – he could easily have edited out that last section from the first video excerpt, with no perceptible loss in continuity. The record is clear that he did not.
As for your idiotic false analogy equating a genuine absence of information to an intentional act, and equating Breitbart to an arsonist, I’ll be way too generous and note that you’re attributing knowledge and motives to Breitbart based on facts you’re assuming, but which are clearly not – and never have been – in evidence.
I cannot find the original clip on Breitbart’s site. But when he was interviewed by Hannity, I certainly did NOT hear him saying, “take a look at my clip, I included the exonerating part.” It was not clear to me exactly what O’Reilly was admitting in the clip which you posted and I saw live.
It is still not clear to me at all that BB posted the parts that later were seen as her exoneration, and YOU have not been saying that either until right now. You have NOT tried every way possible. In fact, you are very short on specifics; you deal in generalities such as “read the whole thing, or “if you had seen the whole thing…”
How about posting exactly the clip that he showed on that day…or has it now been pulled, modified, or swamped in the Gulf of Tonkin??
- I cannot find the original clip on Breitbart’s site.
Translation: “I’m MUCH too frakking lazy to just Google it myself or just scroll through the posts at BigGovernment.com until I find it. I need someone to spoon-feed me.”
And again, Sherrod was exonerated of NOTHING. That line was just a ruse to manipulate people like you who can’t be bothered research stuff like this on their own.
The full-length version of the video demonstrates that she is a straight-up racist, consumed with racial differences as she performs her duties of overseeing the distribution of hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars. And as it turns out, there’s a lot more where that came from…
You just led me back to the clip that I had already found (the first utube segment won’t play; but I will try to find one that will) Did you happen to notice that I quoted exactly from the line before the clip from BB’s clip? So I HAD found everything you just sent (except for the first clip which will not play.) By the way, I have taken out a few choice descriptors I had included that would have paralleled your “I’m MUCH too frakking lazy to blah, blah” just because all this stuff degenerates into bombast and posturing. Been there; done that.
OK, I have finally gotten it to play and HAVE leaned something about what BB posted. He did take it up to the first few sentences of her “exoneration,” but stopped abruptly before the main point she was trying to make became clear. To you, this exonerates him, but to me, it makes him look even more shifty, actually including a sliver of it so that he could say that he did, but not giving enough to make it clear that she was getting to the main point of why she had told the whole anecdote. That is not duplicitous to you? So my point about his NOT showing the next 30 seconds is completely valid; it is just that he did show a sliver more than I knew.
@Dwight:- He did take it up to the first few sentences of her “exoneration,” but stopped abruptly before the main point she was trying to make became clear.
Again, speaking of facts in evidence, please point to where there is ANY evidence that Breitbart edited these excerpts, as opposed to posting them in exactly the form he received them. The additional “sliver” you didn’t know about makes all the difference – especially when we’re talking about the ‘bigger picture’. The point of her speech is made perfectly clear.
To you, this exonerates him, …
Exonerates him… OF WHAT? Again, where is there evidence that these clips were edited by Breitbart in order to make Sherrod out to be something other than what she is: an arrogant racist?
All of the relevant facts necessary to understand Sherrod’s intent AND her audience’s racist reaction are right there in the first video. Note well the second video, where her racist attitude forces her to stereotype blacks as people with an aversion to farm work. If a white person made those comments, s/he’d lose whatever position s/he had so fast it’d make your head spin and we’d be seeing the video played over and over at every Left Wing Media outlet for a month, with copious commentary regarding similarities to the “racist” Tea Party. So that’s just icing on the cake, but instructive in its own right with respect to the nation’s current problem of overbloated government.
Additional commentary in the video – even if it had existed in the versions Breitbart was given – would be superfluous, though it might please your personal, subjective sense of right and wrong, now distorted by a week of building your opinions off of an immersion in the libel and slander aimed at Breitbart. That doesn’t change the reality: Breitbart did nothing for which he needs to apologize.
Furthermore, remember that the full-length video only affirms Sherrod’s racist attitude. Many pointed to this video as “evidence” that her statements were taken out of context. But as the excerpts at Breitbart’s site show – the context necessary to understand the purpose of her self-congratulatory diatribe is all there. Sherrod has gone on to demonstrate her racist attitudes further, so it’s clear that any impression based on those initial video excerpts – leading to the conclusion that she’s a racist, class-baiting bureaucrat – is completely valid.
Full of racist stuff, eh? We might as well get to the subtext here, which is that Shirley and millions of other black people share a sense of grievance which you and I do not. You do happen to have a different sense of strong grievance, but that is another story.
To simplify as much as I can: 1. I do believe that many black people shoot themselves in the foot and are held back by this “aggrieved” mind/emotion-set. 2. BUT, this attitude does get an asterisk, from me, however, when it is classified as racist, since I think that there are some fairly significant extenuating circumstances. You and Breitbart go full bore on the racism meme, which happens to correspond with the political axes which you have to grind. I think that people with your perceptions raise an appropriate point, which blacks should take note of, but you also go nuts with it. In fact, one thing that puts me off the most about righties is how aggrieved they/you are. They get emotional, swagger, bluster, blah, blah blah. To the extent that either lefties or righties do this, I need a lot of distance from both of you.
One of our national problems is that you’s and the Shirley’s just set each other off into absurd extreme statements and then absurd reactions to the previous absurd statements. Obama was supposed to be able to pour oil on these troubled waters, but that hasn’t happened. It is charitable of both of you to go out there and make fools of yourselves daily with your, er, extreme positions. I can see now that there is little possibility of your ever seeing that Breitbart did not proceed in a balanced manner, but, then, you would have to be more balanced yourself to do that.
@Dwight:- We might as well get to the subtext here, which is that Shirley and millions of other black people share a sense of grievance …
This ‘subtext’, once again, is your unsupported assumption – aka Straw Man, aka Exaggeration, aka Fantasy. It’s no different from your unsupported assumption that Breitbart intentionally posted a misleading video, which he didn’t, followed by your unsupported assumption that Breitbart edited the video, which he didn’t, followed now by your unsupported assumption that I harbor some sort of “strong grievance”, which I don’t.
- You and Breitbart go full bore on the racism meme, which happens to correspond with the political axes which you have to grind.
ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME?!?? WHO has been going “full bore” on the racism meme up until now??? The Left Wing Media; the Useful Idiots on Journolist; the Lemming Left in general; Al Sharpton; the NAACCCP, among various others. In point of fact, the one and only reason anyone in the conservative sphere is pointing out racism at all – when the real issue of interest is preventing the destruction of our Republic by collectivists in government – is because of the hypocrisy exhibited daily by leftists who’ve been making those unfounded accusations of “racism”, purely because it suits their ideological agenda in keeping with their Alinskyite tactics.
Why have unfounded accusations of racism against the Tea Party – hell, against ANYONE who’s dared to criticize socialized medicine or any other aspect of BHO’s marxist policies – not raised your self-righteous little hackles before now? Answer: because it was the left doing the accusing, and you’ve been conditioned to see that as “OK”.
No, it is your unsupported assumption that I have a political axe to grind, Dwight. Rather, my concern – same as Breitbart’s in this case – is that the Tea Party in this country has been demonized as “racist” with no evidence whatsoever produced to back it up. WHY have they been so labeled? Simple. Because the left doesn’t have a rational response to their concerns or their demands for accountable, smaller, responsible government. The left’s alternative is the ad hominem “racist” charge, which seeks to demonize and invalidate the Tea Party.
The single entity most responsible for this demonization – next to The Left Wing Media itself – is the NAACCCP. Demonstrating their hypocrisy using video evidence is not grinding a political axe, it is revealing the truth and the facts to the American people whose opinions the NAACCCP seeks to manipulate through deceit and irrational “argument”. If you think revealing the simple, documented truth and the facts is “going nuts” well then you’ll just have to take that opinion down into the basement and use it for your own personal enjoyment because it doesn’t have any bearing on reality.
As far as “aggrieved”, again you clearly don’t have a clue. The entire leftist power structure is built off of leveraging the manufacture rage of aggrieved victim minorities: blacks, gays, lesbians, women, latinos, illegals, muslims… ANY social group the left can convince of having been wronged by “Wall Street”, “Evil Corporations”, “Big Business” or us bitter, clinging, Evil White Christian Males.
As far as Breitbart goes, when you can produce some actual compelling evidence that he ever acted in an “unbalanced” manner, do present it. So far, just like Radosh, you’ve failed to do that.
“Well, I’m not up on what “slander” Shirley has put forth against Breitbart, but I can only imagine what you and I would be saying about a guy…”
Shirley Sherrod has disgracefully asserted that “(Andrew Breibart) He’d Like To Get Us Stuck Back In The Time Of Slavery”. This is pure slander and indicates someone who is not exactly wrapped too tight. There is a double standard. A white adult saying something similar would be severely criticized minimally for being immature.
Not just “would be” but, if memory serves, have been.
IIRC, one of the signs alleged to have appeared at a Tea Party rally mentioned something about BHO trying to implement “White Slavery”. I believe “melody” pointed to this sort of thing as “proof” that the Tea Party as a whole is racist.
Goy: “@Dwight:- We might as well get to the subtext here, which is that Shirley and millions of other black people share a sense of grievance …
This ’subtext’, once again, is your unsupported assumption – aka Straw Man, aka Exaggeration, aka Fantasy. It’s no different from your unsupported assumption that Breitbart intentionally posted a misleading video, which he didn’t, followed by your unsupported assumption that Breitbart edited the video, which he didn’t, followed now by your unsupported assumption that I harbor some sort of “strong grievance”, which I don’t.
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What in earth are you arguing against here, that Shirley and millions of other black people do NOT share a sense of grievance????
Correct. No social group – with the possible exception of White Christian Males – has any rational basis on which to base a social grievance… not in contemporary society.
The people you’re referring to here share a sense of having been institutionally victimized in a world where that victimization is no longer occurring. BHO and numerous others are ample proof of that if nothing else. That erroneous sense of victimization – that manufactured rage referenced above – has been pounded into them by decades of the left exploiting blacks in order to leverage the black community as a voting bloc and, using that, further the collectivist agenda. The same was done to women via “feminism” and ERA, to gays/lesbians via “diversity” and the AIDS issue, to blue collar workers via Unions, to latinos via the immigration issue, to the young via manipulation of academia, and to any other minority the left can isolate demographically in such a way as to implement their divide-and-conquer, Cloward-Piven, Alinskyite strategy and tactics.
Anyway, we’ve now strayed well beyond the original topic, with your tacit acquiescence regarding Breitbart’s actions. So I think we’re done here.
Yeah, I’d also say that we are done, as long as you realize that I said that they had the grievance, not that they had the right to have the grievance. They FEEL aggrieved, OK? You say they have NO right to feel it, I say they don’t have as much right to feel it as they FEEL they do. That is about as close as we are going to come on this one. Liberals say that feelings count (unless they are the feelings of righties), conservatives say that they don’t count (unless it is THEIR OWN feelings.)
As for what Breitbart knew or did not know, when he posted his clip, we are probably not going to find out. You believe that he posted what he did in a perfectly acceptable manner. I don’t think so. Selah.