Breitbart Goes After NAACP

As Andrew Breitbart has now assumed the position as the Left's favorite whipping boy, he is now taking the position that the infamous video is not an indictment of Shirley Sherrod so much as it is an indictment of the NAACP. That is based on the argument that as Sherrod describes the story with the white farmer of two plus decades ago, many members of the audience are verbally giving affirmation as she admits that she was inclined not to really help the man because he was acting superior to her. After viewing the entire tape, I have to give the audience members a pass on that.

As I pointed out, the entire video shows that Sherrod prefaced the story with an introductory statement that signalled that this was a story of how her attitudes had changed. The audience understood that point. They also affirmed Sherrod's statement that it was not about who was black or white rather about poor people in general.

Any regular reader of this blog knows I am a critic of the NAACP. I have stated many times that, in my view, the NAACP has deteriorated from a once great organization into something that is little more than an arm of the Democratic Party. I also feel that they practice racial politics and have become a divisive force. In addition, they acted incompetently in condemning Sherrod based on the excerpts when they themselves were the proprietors of the entire tape. All that said, I cannot criticize the audience at Sherrod's speech.

It appears that in the end, there will be few heroes in this saga. A lot of people made mistakes, including those of us who posted the excerpted video on Day One. Sherrod, who is a victim here, is now making many inflammatory statements against her perceived enemies. Those statements do not serve her well.

As to using excerpted videos, this is an example of when the entire video and speech is needed for context. Yet, speech excerpts are shown every day. It is only natural in this excellerated news cycle that if a controversial person gives a 45 minute speech and says something clearly inflammatory, that's what you will see and hear on the news. It's called the sound bite. Have innocent people been unfairly hurt by it? Of course. Sometimes the sound bite is clearly something said that was hateful. Jeremiah Wright comes to mind. His sound bite about "God damn America" was clear. As we speak, a woman in Milwaukee is running for a state office and fighting to use the campaign slogan, "Not the White Man's bitch." There is a clip of her testifying before some board fighting to keep the slogan. Is it fair to show an excerpt without the entire videotape of the session?

As to Breitbart, I supported his actions in the ACORN video stings. They showed what a corrupt organization that is. Now, however, I am treating him with caution. On TV, to me, he doesn't come across very well. Maybe he is just not all that articulate. My question to him is when he obtained the full videotape-before or after the excerpts went public Monday. One of my corespondents (Anonymous) opines that he should have contacted the NAACP, explained what he had, and asked for a statement or the full video. Then, if the NAACP stonewalled him, he could have gone public with the excerpts-if that was all he had. I have to agree with Anonymous' assessment.

The other burning question is the degree of involvement of the White House in the firing. Agriculture official Cheryl Cook must come public with what she knows-in other words-how did she "learn that the White House wanted Sherrod fired"? There have been no crimes committed that I see; however, it appears that someone in the government is not telling the truth. That will probably cause this thing to snowball. At this point, the credibility of both Breitbart and the administration have come into question.