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:

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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?”

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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.

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