Rambler, blame thyself!
Ever since I met Andrew Breitbart close to three years ago and began doing my own research into what really happened in the Breitbart / Sherrod kerfuffle, I’ve always felt that Andrew never got the public defense that he richly deserved.
There are exceptions, such as this excellent article Dissecting Shirley Sherrod’s Complaint Against Andrew Breitbart by William Jacobson from Legal Insurrection but generally it’s been nothing. Nada. Bupkis.
One major point of contention is that Breitbart initially incorrectly stated that Sherrod had admitted to discriminating against a white farmer while she was working for the USDA.
This was in error. She’d actually admitted to discriminating against a white farmer when working for another group BEFORE she worked for the USDA.
This mistake was corrected by Breitbart as soon as it was revealed.
This point about incorrectly stating that Sherrod discriminated while working for the USDA as State Director of Rural Development is part of Sherrod’s lawsuit:
Mr. Breitbart then embedded into the blog post the selectively-edited video clip described above, prefaced by additional false and defamatory introductory statements: “Mrs. Sherrod admits that in her federally appointed position, overseeing over a billion dollars … [s]he discriminates against people due to their race.”
Okay, but it’s still a mistake, right?
Yes, it is. That’s why the correction was issued.
Why the mistake?
Shirley Sherrod has nobody but herself and her speech to blame.
Nobody.
The following quote is directly from Sherrod’s book. It’s her own statement of what she said in that speech.
Sherrod is talking about being the State Director of Rural Development then she begins talking about the first time she was faced with helping a white farmer.
There’s nothing to indicate when she was faced with helping the white farmer. The logical assumption is that it happened in the position that she was just talking about.
Read the quote from Sherrod herself and you’ll see what any reasonable person would see: (emphasis added)
You know God is so good ’cause people like me don’t get appointed to positions like State Director of Rural Development. They just don’t get these kinds of positions ’cause I’ve been out there at every grassroots level and I’ve paid some dues. When I made that commitment [after my father’s death], 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, 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 know what he was doing. But he had come to me for help. What he didn’t know—while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me-was I was trying to decide how much help I was going to give him.
Lee, keep peeling the layers of truth from the picture the MSM gives Americans. This story hardly made the news until it became an issue AGAINST Breitbart. Thanks for revealing the whole picture.
The fact that she said what she said and how she said it doesn’t matter. America can’t discern the actual truth anymore. The scales of Justice can NOT be properly weighed when looking through the prism of Political Correctness. Or through the lens of the main stream media.
Keep up your efforts to unveil the actual truth and inform Americans, at least those who will listen.
How many scandals derive from Ms. Sherrod’s speech? Let’s try to count them… (1) Her own admission of racism; (23) the crowd’s untempered, laughing approval of Ms. Sherrod’s behavior; (3) the intentional distortion of Andrew Breitbart’s criticism of the film; (4) media collusion in the intentional distortion of Andrew Breitbart’s criticism; (5) in light of her own comments, Ms. Sherrod’s lawsuit against Andrew Breitbart; media disinterest in Ms. Sherrod’s suit against Andrew Breitbart; and (6) media disinterest in the substitution of Mrs. Breitbart for Andrew Breitbart in the case. I suspect that with more thought, one may discern others, too. Someone else may mine more from the circumstances, but it’s hard to escape labeling the affair anything but a travesty from every perspective at this point. Sherrod’s vindictiveness toward Mrs. Breitbart is particularly tragic and heartwrenching.