Former USDA employee Sherrod plans to sue blogger Breitbart

It's about time someone steps up to the plate and stops cowering to the liars who are destroying peoples lives and dividing America! Fox, Palin and Limbaugh should be next!~Mem

By Kay Mathews

In the wake of conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posting an edited video clip of Shirley Sherrod's speech at an NAACP chapter meeting, and her eventual ousting from the US Department of Agriculture, Sherrod announced that she plans to sue Breitbart.

According to CNN, Sherrod made her announcement in San Diego, California during an appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists convention. As can be heard in the video above, Sherrod said, Breitbart "had to know that he was targeting me. At this point, he hasn't apologized. I don't want it at this point, and he'll definitely hear from me." When asked about taking legal action against Breitbart, Sherrod replied, "I will definitely do it." CNN reported that "Brent Bozell, head of the conservative Media Research Center, said Thursday Sherrod was the one who needed to apologize." Bozell said, "Andrew Breitbart is going to be fine. He's done nothing wrong." The Detroit Free Press indicated that Sherrod shared "some down-home Southern wisdom" during the NABJ convention, noting that she invited President Obama and journalists "to visit Georgia and get a better sense of African-American history." When asked to comment on Pres. Obama's claim made on "The View" that "the episode was the media's fault," Sherrod was quoted by the Detroit Free Press as saying:

It wasn't all media. It was Fox. If all media had acted like Fox, I don't know where I would be at this point and how I would be feeling.

Bozell responded, according to CNN, saying, "I also hope this champion of honesty will stop lying about Fox News which has been accused of pushing the story before full details emerged." The "episode" referred to by Pres. Obama was Breitbart posting about two-minutes of Sherrod's 43-minute speech on his web site and Fox running with the clip. The clip suggests that Sherrod was exhibiting racist behavior, and she was forced to resign from her position with the USDA.

The Song Of The Teabigots, Repubs and Faux!

Obama made me do it! Can someone please get these people a sandbox, some cookies, milk and a nap pad! NOW!~Mem

Breitbart Claims That His Edited Sherrod Video is an Obama Plot to Destroy Him
Posted on July 27, 2010 by Jason Easley

Andrew Breitbart was on Michael Savage’s show today, where he claimed that his own edited video of Shirley Sherrod is really a campaign by Barack Obama to destroy him. Breitbart said, “I believe that he is orchestrating the campaign to destroy me and my reputation.”

Here is the audio courtesy of Media Matters:

In response to a caller who asked if Obama’s appearance on The View this week is payback for his possibly asking program last week to put on Shirley Sherrod, Breitbart said, “I don’t know, but I think, I’m not going to say I feel bad for President Obama because I believe that he is orchestrating the campaign to destroy me and my reputation.”

Okay, so according to Breitbart, Obama was behind his editing of a 25 year old video of Shirley Sherrod, to give the false impression that she was racist. Obama also told Breitbart to post the video to his own website for the sole purpose of using the doctored video as grounds for firing Ms. Sherrod so that the truth could soon emerge, which would destroy Breitbart’s reputation as a, “credible journalist.” The problem is that even before this Breitbart had no credibility after the ACORN video was exposed as a doctored fraud.

It is revealing that Breitbart did not get to go on Fox News, Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh’s radio shows in order to make his case, but that he has been reduced to going on Michael Savage’s show, which is most decidedly part of the B team in the right wing media. It would appear that all of the A list big audience programs are distancing themselves from him. Despite what he thinks of himself, Andrew Breitbart is not important enough for the President of the United States to waste one second thinking about him, much less hatch a plot to destroy him.

Breitbart is trying to appeal to the natural paranoia of the conservative mindset in order to save his own hide. If we suspend all logic and reality for a second, and believe Breitbart’s story, then he is the biggest idiot on the face of the earth. His defense is that he is a victim of an Obama plot, which means that he played a role in setting himself up, because he edited the video and ran it on his site. Even the most die hard Obama hating conspiracy theorists have to shake their heads at that one. Breitbart should have been finished after his ACORN video was debunked, but now he and his race baiting really are done. Let’s hope Shirley Sherrod sues him for every dime he’s got, and maybe she can take over his website and use it to combat racism. That would be some true poetic justice.

Will media fall for Breitbart's attempt to spin his spectacular failure?

As Faux should say: The Spin Starts Here!~Mem

July 21, 2010 9:53 am ET by Jocelyn Fong

After launching what has now been conclusively shown to be an unfair and false attack on Shirley Sherrod, Andrew Breitbart is scrambling to justify his decision to post the deceptive video. He now says that his blog post -- which smeared Sherrod as racist -- was "not about Shirley Sherrod. It's not about Shirley Sherrod. I can say it 20 times. It's about the NAACP." In fact, there is ample evidence that Breitbart directly went after Sherrod.

And if his claim that the NAACP tolerates racism is based on the debunked claim that Sherrod's speech shows she is racist, doesn't his whole excuse fall apart? Well, Breitbart claimed on Fox News last night that the video proves there are racists among the NAACP because "the audience was laughing and applauding as she described how she maltreated the white farmer," and he argued that the audience did not "know that there was going to be a point of redemption" in her story.

On Good Morning America today, Breitbart again claimed that his video shows that "at an NAACP event, people are applauding racism." And he demonstrated:

In his initial post, Breitbart described the audience reaction as "nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement." And that was before we all had access to the full video and the proper context. Now, he says that the audience was "applauding" in approval of discrimination. In fact, Breitbart's claim that the audience was applauding as she "described how she maltreated the white farmer" is demonstrably false.

First of all, the full video shows that the audience did have reason to understand where Sherrod's speech was going and that her story was about the importance of moving beyond race. Before getting into the story about the "white farmer," Sherrod previewed the lesson that she learned:

[16:34] SHERROD: God is good. I can tell you that. When I made that commitment, I was making that commitment to black people -- and to black people only. But you know God will show you things and he'll put things in your path so that you realize that the struggle is really about poor people --

AUDIENCE: All right. All right.

SHERROD: -- you know. The first time I was faced with having to help a white farmer save his farm. He took a long time talking but he was trying to show me he was superior to me -- I knew what he was doing.

Her story begins around 16:30 in the video. Contrary to Breitbart's claim, the audience does not applaud at any point during the story about her interaction with the farmer.

Nevertheless, media outlets are already uncritically reporting Breitbart's attempt to cover his ass. The New York Times reports:

"They're trying to make this about me and Shirley Sherrod. This is about the N.A.A.C.P.," he said by phone. He said that the civil rights group had "spent an inordinate amount of airtime trying to brand the Tea Party as racist" while tolerating racism itself.

The Washington Times wrote:

Mr. Breitbart, whose Big Government blog posted the video, said Tuesday that the point was the NAACP audience's reaction to Mrs. Sherrod's account of her past actions.

"This was not about Shirley Sherrod. This was about the NAACP attacking the Tea Party and this is showing racism at an NAACP event. I did not ask for Shirley Sherrod to be fired," he told CNN, adding that Mrs. Sherrod "should have the right to defend herself. But what you see on the video are people ... applauding her overt racism that she is representing."

And the Los Angeles Times reported:

Breitbart told CNN's "John King, USA" that releasing the video was "not about Shirley Sherrod."

"This was about the NAACP attacking the tea party, and this is showing racism at an NAACP event," he said.

How can these outlets actually repeat Breitbart's claim that this was "not about Shirley Sherrod," when it clearly was? Didn't anyone read what Breitbart had written? In his initial post on July 19, Breitbart claimed that the video is "evidence of racism coming from a federal appointee" and that Sherrod discriminated against a white farmer in her "federal duties" as the USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development. The video itself also included text that said. "Ms. Sherrod admits that in her federally appointed position, overseeing over a billion dollars she discriminates against people due to their race." Breitbart then posted a tweet asking, "Will Eric Holder's DOJ hold accountable fed appointee Shirley Sherrod for admitting practicing racial discrimination?" After the USDA forced Sherrod out of her position in response to the deceptive video, Big Government celebrated with a post titled: "Racist Govt Official/NAACP Award Recipient Resigns after Big Government Expose."

Things quickly took a turn for the worse for Breitbart. Sherrod told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Breitbart's video completely distorted the meaning of her remarks, and media outlets - aside from Fox News, which repeatedly aired the cropped video and called Sherrod a racist - began calling for Breitbart to release the full video. Breitbart was then forced to admit that he did not have the full video and that he had smeared Sherrod as a racist based on a three-minute clip that cuts her off in the middle of her speech, indeed in the middle of a sentence. CNN later interviewed the "white farmer" who Breitbart claimed Sherrod discriminated against, and he said her critics "don't know what they're talking about" and that Sherrod had done "her level best" to help him save his farm. With the full video now available, everyone can see plainly that the facts are basically the opposite of what Breitbart claimed them to be.

The whitewash began immediately. Big Government inexplicably criticized the Obama administration for believing and reacting to what Breitbart had called "video proof" of racism by a federal official. Glenn Beck and FoxNews.com also appear to be concealing Breitbart's failure and Fox News' own horrendous coverage.

And now Breitbart is trying to cover his outrageous smear of one woman by baselessly attacking a whole group of people as racist. Will the media comply?

When Is It Enough?

The minute Sarah Palin nodded when a man in the crowd yelled "Kill The N*****" during her VP campaign? The minute she invoked hate and racism as well as violence? The minute Fox told their very first lie to invoke hate and racism? The minute Joe Wilson shouted at the President Of The US "You Lie"? When does the media as well as the White house say this is enough? When do these people get called out for what they are? The time is NOW before America has another great tragedy! We cannot be silent! We must call these people out and we must call the media out and make everyone accountable. Fox and Rush should be held accountable for their blatant lies and invoking hate and racism in this Country. The rest of the media should be held accountable for not calling these people out but jumping on the bandwagon for ratings instead! When is it enough America?~Mem


[WARNING: Audio not safe for work.]

By David Neiwert Wednesday Jul 21, 2010 11:00am

Violent, racist haters among the tea partiers? NAACP gets death threats which proves it's point.

It's obvious why Andrew Breitbart successfully smeared Shirley Sherrod on utterly fake grounds -- he wants desperately to prove that it's the NAACP is actually a racist organization, after its condemnation of racism within the Tea Parties. Indeed, this has been a long-running schtick of Breitbart's -- that the "real" racists are not white people, but people of color.

He was even on CNN yesterday whining that "It is un-American" that the NAACP accused the Tea Party movement of racism "absent evidence".

Um, actually, Andrew, the NAACP provided plenty of evidence of racism within its ranks.

And then, as if to prove the point, a caller who clearly is an angry Tea Partier left the following message at NAACP's Hollywood bureau:

Caller: Of course you won't answer the phone yourself. Because you're chickens--t racist n---ers. The entire black race is nothing but a have-not bunch of bums. You can't work for yourselves. All you do is suck off the white man. F--k you, motherf---er! F--k you! You want a race war, you got it, motherf---er! You want to f---ing kill our babies, and kill white people? You, you're gonna f---in' -- the streets will run red with blood. The streets will run red with your blood. F--k you!

Not only was this caller severely lacking in the logical consistency department -- first he calls the NAACP racist, then embarks on a rant about "the entire black race" (in this regard, he's a lot like the typical Fox pundit). But the reference to "kill our babies" and "kill white people" was also an obvious reference to that incendiary video Fox News ran as a way of ginning up racial hatred and resentment among its white audience.

In other words, they fully succeeded. They should be so proud.

And is it just me, or does this guy actually sound a lot like Breitbart himself? Hmmmmmmm