Mr. President,
You screwed up. Secretary Vilsack may have been the one who executed the decision, but the buck stops at your desk. Cabinet secretaries don't work in a vacuum. Even if you were never consulted on a decision, the decisions they make are done with the full imprint of your office. The decision to fire Shirley Sherrod was a mistake, and it happened with your authority.
The clear mistake made was believing the lies and presentation of serial liar Andrew Breitbart and his allies at Fox News Channel. Bluntly, this was stupid. You should know better. The right wing is built on a foundation of lies and deception. If a figure on the right is speaking, it's safe to assume that they are not telling the truth. I understand your belief in bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle, and I even support it (within reason) but especially when it comes to right-wing media figures, it is a fools errand of the worst sort for you or your cabinet to have invested anything in their words.
This was wrong, sir. This video and your actions smeared a public servant's name. Shirley Sherrod is the kind of person whose service deserves reward, not to have her name dragged through the right wing mud with the aid of the highest office in the land.
The only honorable thing for your administration to do is to offer Ms. Sherrod her job back (I doubt she would take it under the circumstances, but she deserves for an offer to be made) and an apology from Secretary Vilsack and yourself.
If these steps aren't taken, at best we'll have to assume that the right wing media is now the final voice on who can and cannot serve in our government, based on falsified evidence that smears their name. When we voted for you, it was most certainly not a vote to give Andrew Breitbart hiring and firing power in our government.
This mistake lies at your feet. Enemies of the presidency and the American government have been enabled, while faithful public servants have been attacked. Please remedy this problem, quickly.
Follow Oliver Willis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/owillis
he said he made nice with HLGates and Cam.Cop but we still are getting stopped, harassed , handcuffed and tased by these bullies
That is policy he needs to address policy
the president's job is not to fix one person's probem only, but to make better policy, end abuse
Non-racists do not think of terms such as "one of their kind". It would never enter the mind of someone who doesn't have SOME aspect of racism to their personality.
If someone can explain how that isn't indicative of a racist mentality (no matter how minor), help me out here.
and if the Obama Teams so smart, then why do they always fall for it?
they got Obama to apologize to Cambridge Cop, when he was a bully, out of line and wasting time. If a private sector employee, like a securty guard detained an innocent man he'd be fired on the spot
maybe Obama's staff is putting a knife in his back
The problem for me was that not once - not once - did he ever say, "We are sorry for what we did."
It would have been simple and it would have been right to apologize to her rather than self promote on an occasion that was not suitable for it.
Beer summit!
they shouldn't interfere and not without finding the facts
My question, as a legal services professional, is how much money in damages Sherrod can now claim against Breitbart, FOX and the Obama administration? I hope it is in the seven figures because FOX needs to be taught a salient lesson most valid news-gatherers learned in high school. The story must be validated by more than two sources, and you must have full audio, video, transcript or whatever else is publicly available. Neither Party should excuse negligent journalism.
Damn Crackers!
In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”
Specifically, “If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us,” Ackerman wrote on the Journolist listserv in April 2008. “Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”
they shouldn't be running to do what TV pundits bid
tho they bow to the Mighty Fox often enough