(Ed Stein)
I've been wanting to post about the Shirley Sherrod incident, but what can I say that's not obvious? This isn't the first time Andrew Breitbart has published a fake video. Remember that fake ACORN video which destroyed that non-profit community organization? So why did everyone automatically believe it this time? Was it just that no one could believe that even he would be this blatant, to manipulate a video so that it would give the exact opposite impression from what was really being said?
That does take gall, I must admit. But why not? Breitbart hasn't seemed to suffer a bit from either shameful incident. In fact, he's the new hero of the far-right. David Frum talks about the shame of conservative media, but he's very much an exception (Frum has suffered already for being a conservative honest enough to tell the truth):
By the morning of July 20 the Sherrod-as-racist narrative had collapsed.
What is most fascinating about that second day, however, was the conservative reaction to the collapse. At midday on the 20th, Rush Limbaugh was still praising Breitbart: "I know that Andrew Breitbart's done great work getting this video of Ms. Sherrod at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and her supposed racism and so forth saying she's not gonna help a white farmer."
By the evening of the 20th, however, conservatives were backing away, acknowledging that an innocent women had been defamed. ...
But you’ll never guess who emerged as the villains of the story in this second-day conservative react. Not Andrew Breitbart, the distributor of a falsified tape. No, the villains were President Obama and the NAACP for believing Breitbart's falsehood.
Breitbart went almost universally unmentioned. Erickson even justified Breitbart's falsehood as a tragic but necessary and justifiable measure of conservative self-defense...
Progressives aren't any too happy with Barack Obama on this one, either (aren't, indeed, overly happy anyway, having gotten a far more moderate president than they expected, and one apparently so intent on getting along with his enemies that he won't fight for what's right), but there's an obvious reason why race baiting works with this administration. It's not admirable that they were so willing to believe the worst, especially on the shaky evidence of a man already proven to post fake videos, but this kind of narrative is kryptonite to our first black president. (And all too many white people are shamefully eager to believe that whole "reverse racism" thing.)
When it comes to the NAACP, you've got to contrast their response - quickly denouncing an apparent instance of black racism - with the right-wing response to Breitbart's shenanigans (he's now headlining a Republican National Committee fundraiser in California). The NAACP may indeed have shown gullibility, but at least they were eager to do the right thing. Republicans, on the other hand, seem to have no problem with deliberate falsehoods (having become inured to such things from many years of watching Fox "News," I suppose).
At any rate, the fact that the right-wing is trying to blame Barack Obama and the NAACP for this incident is just disgusting.
Politico blames partisanship. It's "the age of rage." Yes, yes. Always, when we see something like this from the right-wing - something deceitful, something shameful, something beyond all reasonable standards of correct behavior - we inevitably get the response that "both sides do it." Yes, it's terrible how partisan politics plays out in America, isn't it?
But this kind of response excuses the inexcusable. No, both sides don't do it, certainly not to this extent. If, whenever something shameful like this is discovered, we "tsk, tsk" about politics in general, we are just giving a free pass to the worst people in our society. We don't excuse a murderer by regretfully noting the general amount of violence in America. Some things are wrong, and the perpetrator should be soundly condemned.
I like how Alex Pareene puts it in this jab at Politico:
Real-life reporters are supposed to be baffled as to how to respond to this fact-lite outrage? Shouldn't they have just found the full video, or interviewed Sherrod, like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution did? If you have to write about the latest Breitbart outrage RIGHT THIS SECOND, you write, "Bomb-throwing propagandist with history of disregard for factual accuracy posts race-baiting video intended to score political points against NAACP and black people in general." It was a really easy story! And the next Andrew Breitbart outrage will be the same story! It is not "partisan" or "biased" to call Andrew Breitbart a liar, because he lies.
Now, right-wingers apparently have a new strategy, to call Shirley Sherrod a liar because she claimed that her father was lynched, when he was actually beaten to death. As TPM points out, these lunatics need to buy a dictionary. "Lynch" means to kill without a legal trial. You don't have to hang a man in order to "lynch" him.
But still, what kind of mindset would think that an appropriate take on this situation in the first place? Sherrod's father was murdered by white men. And later, when working for a non-profit organization (none of this happened when she worked for the government), she felt some reluctance, at first, in helping a white couple save their family farm, especially when so many black people had lost theirs. But she overcame that natural feeling.
It's a truly inspiring story,... and then for race-baiting purposes, a right-winger deliberately edited the video to make it seem just the reverse. So now they're going to argue - erroneously, like all of their arguments, it seems - about the meaning of the word, "lynch"? You've got to be kidding me!
Here, incidentally, is a video interview of the white couple Sherrod helped:
As it turned out, both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were on vacation when this story broke, but each had something to say about it last night. I'll embed the video clips below the fold. Click to continue.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Lost in Race | ||||
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Incidentally, that "Black Panther hard-on" of Fox "News" is explained in this MediaMatters report:
Six Fox News shows have discussed the phony New Black Panthers scandal during a total of 95 segments since Megyn Kelly's June 30 interview hyping the unsubstantiated allegations of right-wing activist J. Christian Adams. In all, these Fox shows have devoted more than eight hours of airtime to discussing the New Black Panthers.
Phony, hyping, unsubstantiated allegations - yup, that sounds like Fox "News," alright. Obviously, this is also all about race baiting. And sure enough, with elections coming up, Senate Republicans are asking for hearings about alleged racial bias in the Department of Justice - alleged racial bias against white people.
This is all part of the same strategy to smear our first black president. All too many whites are willing to believe the worst of black people. Many on the right, in fact, are eager to believe it. In a majority-white nation, this is tailor made for political advantage - at least, if you have no morals or ethics at all.
Anyway, here is Stephen Colbert:
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Racial Pro Firing | ||||
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"You say potato, I say black racists are going to take away our potatoes." Heh, heh. I love it. You've really got to laugh at this stuff, don't you think? Certainly, in a case like this, the right-wing deserves all the ridicule we can send their way.
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