Thinking about the Sherrod affair

I'm going to stick my nose into an issue that never should have been an issue to begin with,  Like it or not, and I don't,  I need to comment about it now, more about that a little later.

I forget where and when I saw the first headline about Shirley Sherrod.  I remember that by the second paragraph I'd decided the entire thing was absurd. In a speech a few months ago a woman mentions she acted in a way some folks might consider insensitive.. a generation ago.. and suddenly it's a headline.  What the ------?  I didn't finish the story.. I didn't watch the video clip.. I didn't even notice that Andew Brietbart's Big Journalism was behind it. 



Shirley Sherwood


If we start filling the headlines with accounts of relatively minor politically incorrect actions commited by ordinary citizens over the last generation we wouldn't get any real news.  At least that's what I thought about the incident then.... That was before FOX, The Mainstream Media, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and the NAACP all lost whatever collective sanity they had over the matter and an anecdotal story actually became news, not because of  the story value, but because of the insanity that followed.   I was thinking that, before the President made himself an international laughingstock over the incident..  I was thinking that about the time Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign for sharing an incident that happened years before.

Shirley Sherrod had commited the ultimate crime..  overworked and under pressure she'd allowed race to have some affect on her priorities...

Note.. Whoever decided to make a mountian out of this mole hill needs to spend a couple days at any Maryland Motor Vehicle branch 

A day or so later we find out the Brietbart's people had used an edited version of the clip..  Suddenly FOX, the MSM and everyone else were tripping over themselves trying to undo what they shouldn't have been dumb enough to do to start with.  It would have been almost funny if a persons life hadn't been screwed up because of the idiocy.  The White House reaction made editorial news all over the world.  Take a couple minutes and read this piece Race to judgment  published in Al Jazeera, There were similar articles in the Jeruselem Post and the Moscow Times..  Great for our national image.  

Closer to home, a Florida Today poster made comments about the more conservative FT Bloggers dragging poor Sherrod's name through the mud.. I'm one of the more conservative bloggers on Florida Today, so it stands to reason he was including me in his all encompassing statement..  The only comment I made about the stupidity was to point out the Al Jareera piece to another blogger.  I didn't see any other FT blog authors dragging Shirley Sherrod through the mud either.

The Administration, the media and Florida Today's less than truthful blogger are all too aware, that in this country, an accusation of racism doesn't have to be supported by fact or evidence of any kind.  A simple accusation was  enough to cause a panic reaction by the administration and a media feeding frenzy.  Funny that when it involves someone like Eric Holder, then there's a news blackout. 

On the surface the FT Blogger and Andrew Brietbart seem to have something in common, neither are opposed to the malicious use of the race card. Some of Obama's best media friends have gotten good at playing the race card..  I'm hearing stories that featured writers like Ezra Klien and Paul Krugmann who write for for major media outlets like the Washington Post formed a club...  among their goals was to promote the progressive left by slamming conservatives..  the tool of choice... the race card.          

Reacting irrationally every time someone mentions the word racist needs to stop.  So does it's malicious and slanderous use.