sherrod

This whole Shirley Sherrod episode is grotesque on many levels. One of those levels is that somehow Barack Obama himself is to blame, and that Obama is the one with a race problem. The White House, by which I really mean Tom Vilsack, is certainly guilty of a stupid kneejerk reaction in trying to premptively avoid a right wing race related freakout. If Obama gave the green light to Vilsack, then he is guilty of the same. But c'mon, mang. Andrew Breitbart is the villain here. No sugarcoating it. Yet, it seems like he is being treated as a minor player, even just the faciliatator, rather than  the willful, slandering, liar he is.

That in 2010, right-wing Conservatives have the biggity balls to try and lead a discussion about how whites are the real target of racism would be laughable, except that they are doing just that. And the "media" is biting. hook, line and sinker. No idea what Breitbart would have to do to get off of their radar, except maybe become a liberal.

I could go on but I think I think I'd rather just do the lazy/blogger/pajamas/basement thing and quote some people more eloquent than I:

Josh Marshall:

Still, you just have to...realize that as disappointing as Tom Vilsack's first crack at this was, the idea that he or Obama is the bad guy in this story is not only preposterous but verging on obscene. It's like the NYPD as the bad guy in the Son of Sam saga because they didn't catch David Berkowitz fast enough. 

Scott Rosenberg

If you're a writer or journalist and you quote someone selectively or out of context so egregiously that you can twist their words to mean the very opposite of what they actually convey when they're quoted in full or in context, what you have done is not just mischievous or aggressive, it's outright wrong. If you're a professional, then you've committed an act of professional malfeasance. 

And if you get away with this sort of stunt repeatedly, despite being exposed and shamed for it, then you are pulling off a grand heist -- stealing the credibility of larger media and government institutions that continue to pay attention to you.