Sherrod Video-Exculpatory

This morning, I took the time to view the Shirley Sherrod speech in its entirety using the video supplied by the NAACP. It is 43 minutes long. As to the question of her anecdote about her assistance to the white farmer, the tape is clearly exculpatory. Ms Sherrod should never have been fired. I am re-posting it below.



At about the 16:45 mark, she begins the story by confessing that when she began her work assisting farmers, she was focused on "making the commitment to black people only", but that she eventually realized that it was about helping poor people. Thus, the audience understood at the onset that this not bragging about "payback". Therefore, the reaction of the audience to Sherrod's mindset at that time is understandable. I have no criticism of that. (NAACP President Ben Jealous initially criticized the audience reaction based on the excerted version of the speech.)

It should be kept in mind that Ms Sherrod is old enough to have personally experienced the bad old days growing up in Georgia. Her father was murdered by white men who were later acquitted. If she still carries some resentments, it is understandable. I am sure there is much that she and I could disagree about, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether she should have been fired, and the only reasonable conclusion is that she should not. There are snippets of the speech I could disagree with, but that would be nit-picking. The central issue is that the excerpts were misleading. The entire video shows that there was no justifiable reason to fire her.

That leaves both sides of the political spectrum to debate over who was culpable. Clearly, the Dept. Of Agriculture and Tom Vilsack acted way too hastily. That leads us to question what, if any, was the role of the White House in her firing. The NAACP also acted hastily in condemning Sherrod without viewing the entire tape-which was their own tape. Only after viewing the entire version, did they change course and come to her defense.

That takes us to what again is a battle of the networks. To the left, the villains are Andrew Breitbart, who published the initial (edited) version, and Fox News, who ran with the story first. Bill O'Reilly announced that Sherrod "must resign immediately". (She was doing exactly that as he spoke.) He apologized last night. Sean Hannity showed the tape as well and announced that she had resigned. Interestingly, it was Glenn Beck (who was the one the White House allegedly feared was going to run the story that night), who cautioned that the entire speech should be heard in the interest of context. MSNBC, not surprisingly, is blasting Fox for running the story in the first place.

Yet, when the story first broke, it appeared Breitbart was not in possession of the full tape. There apparently was no indication that he ever would have the entire tape. Now that the NAACP has released the full tape, Fox's commentators agree that it is exculpatory.

Yet, here is another twist; Breitbart has told CNN this week that he eventually received a full video and that he would post it on his blog "if the owner gave him permission". That raises the question of when Breitbart got the full tape. If he released the excerpts minus the full version (if it was in his possession), then the question is why. Is it because he had not taken the time to review the entire video? Then he would be guilty of sloppiness. On the other hand, if Breitbart had the full tape and had reviewed it prior to releasing the excerpts-then he has a major problem on his hands. That is a question that must be settled.

So it is up to the public to decide whether Breitbart and Fox acted appropriately in going with what they had. That is also true of bloggers who went with the original (edited) version (including yours truly). What seems proper at this point is to acknowledge that the full video changes the story completely-a cautionary lesson for us all including the media.