The Sherrod Debacle

As many of you may know, Shirley Sherrod, director of the Georgia USDA was fired for appearing to make racist statements, then offered a promotion when the White House figured they acted prematurely (as he did with the Professor Gates/ Cambridge police screw-up).

Well, here is something to chew on...

The video clip that started this flap was from an NAACP meeting. You will not find any conservatives at such a meeting, so it's a cinch that the video belonged either to the NAACP or an associate.

SOMEONE sent breitbart.com (conservative blog) a small portion of the video - only the snippet that shows Sherrod implying she was racist. That video snippet could only have come from an associate of the NAACP, and since it was deceptively edited to show something that was not true, you can bet it was a setup.

Someone at the NAACP used that clip, taken out of context, to set up Breitbart and other conservative media in a typical liberal ploy to damage their opponents.

What they did not see comig was the LIBERAL over-reaction. Even before conservative media could report on this, the Obama administration ordered the firing of Sherrod, and Vilsack (her boss) did fire her.

And then the much maligned Glenn Beck checked out the story (which he always does, but others often do not) and found that the clip was out of context, and that Sherrod was NOT racist. Beck defended her, and proved the case.

And that forced the Obama administration to apologize to Sherrod and offer her a promotion.

The NAACP, in an attempt to discredit conservative media, actually succeeded in arranging for the Obama administration to again have egg on their faces.

Yes, some in conservative media jumped on the story - but how could they not? They did not have access to anything but the clip.

But Glenn Beck, a very thorough investigator turned up the truth, exposed it and helped set things right.

I can only hope that after two such incidents of jumping to (the wrong) conclusions that the Obama administration has learned something - in America, you do not assume a person guilty until found innocent. That every citizen is entitled to due process, and that due diligence should be exercised BEFORE putting foot in mouth.

And to the conservative media I would suggest using greater due diligence, particularly when a news story comes from a questionable source, or comes incomplete.

And to Glenn Beck I say, "good job". Done the way reporting should be done - INVESTIGATE the facts, all of them, and then report the findings.

Beck may be a bit nutty, but I have only found him to be wrong once - and in that instance, he corrected himself in public and apologized.

And to those who "hate" Beck because of what you THINK you know about him, I would recommend watching him regularly for two weeks. You may not LIKE what he has to say, but at least you will learn something you'll not learn anywhere else - with evidence of every claim he makes.

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