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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Shirley Sherrod

Shirley Sherrod. Who? That's right, who? 72 hours ago this unknown, under the radar, medium level bureaucrat with the Dept. of Agriculture was known to no one but her friends and family. So why is it now the whole nation is focused on her? Why did Keith Olbermann while away from his show sign in with a 12 minute speech (excellent by the way) on her? Why have there been millions of tweets about Shirley Sherrod? Because of everything that is wrong about our wonderful nation. The fact that a media organization supposedly a news agency too, could report without fact checking, a biased, get back at the NAACP, blacks are racists too story, from a known piece of human scum, Andrew Breitbart that happened to be false, causing her embarrassment and pretty much get away with it, while diminishing every good instinct about journalism and news reporting that a free press should be about is sad. But even worse than that, worse than FOX and its actor/actress journalists, its partisan untruthful dangerous Limbaugh/Beck like hate, is the way our President and his administration handled it. Immediate forced resignation without checking. And the NAACP, all about protecting equality for blacks jumped on this poor woman too, without checking the facts. Now the Agriculture Secretary apologized as did the President's spokesman although meekly, and Mrs. Sherrod has been offered back her job but this is a weak response to a disastrous mishandling of this situation. Forget the particulars of Mrs. Sherrod's speech and the edited youtube clip, which anyone can research if you like. And forget FOX. They were just being FOX, a useless, self-serving entertainment organization with hate in its bones. But let's not forget President Obama, who promised to call out politicians and the media when they are wrong, who promised us a better path to civility and who gave the most marvelous speech on race in Philadelphia during the campaign that I had ever heard. He has been advised by his aides to play everthing cool, not to look too black, to be the President of all the people as Mr. Olbermann talked about on his program last night. Obama is not delivering the kind of tough, no nonsense response to hate and bigotry that he is really all about. I voted for the President because I know that in his heart he loves this country and believes in its better side and its wonderful people, but when you allow an active, vocal, mean spirited minority to get so under your skin that you react to them with fear and politics, you have failed us all. Mr. President, Shirley Sherrod is owed more from you than her job back, she is owed a national speech, heard by us all, telling us that such badness and hate, will not be tolerated by you and fought with every fiber in your soul. Then, I will feel as if you are being you, not a creation of safe political hacks looking for moderation and compromise with no reward in sight. Please Mr. President, our national psyche is at stake. Where are you Americans for reason and truth?

1 comment:

  1. There was a really fabulous segment on NPR yesterday regarding this!

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