The Power of Redemption

Wall Street Journal ^ | 7/23/2010 | Peggy Noonan

[Servant of the Cross]

She was smeared by right-wing media, condemned by the NAACP, and canned by the Obama administration. It wasn't pretty, what was done this week to Shirley Sherrod.

And maybe something good can come of it. The thought occurred to me after reading her now-famous speech, which is about the power of grace and the possibility of redemption.

Here's a way to get some good. This September, when school begins, we should make the speech required viewing in the nation's high schools. It packs quite a lesson within quite a story.

You know the essential facts. On March 27, Ms. Sherrod, 62, Georgia director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, spoke at an NAACP meeting in Coffee County, Ga. She was dressed in a dark suit with ivory lapels and cuffs, and the impression she gives in the video is of a person of authority. She came across like a person who has lived a life, not a media knock-off of a life but a real one.

And this is what she said. Forty-five years before, to the day, her father's funeral was held. He had been murdered by a white man in Baker County, Ga. These were still the bad old days; lynchings had taken place in her lifetime. The man who murdered her father "was never punished," even though there were three eyewitnesses. The grand jury refused to indict.

[Servant of the Cross]

The Pegster's take on the Shirley Sherrod story. Of course she misses the point, choosing to equate the wrongness of liberals condemning without understanding with what she calls a "right wing smear". Breitbart just exposed what the Left routinely does in selectively smearing conservatives of racism.

The lesson is that the Left reflexively engages in the politics of personal destruction without thinking or knowing anything. And they will take out anyone in their way, even a 62-year old fellow liberal black lady who is more wise than any of them.

[JPG]

Noonan continues down the path to total irrelevancy.

[what's up]

Noonan’s a classic airhead.

[jessduntno]

Here’s what is wrong with the way the press is looking at this;

“You know how they came back talking, and came back looking.” The audience laughed. “I learned later some of those cars they drove home were rented.” The audience laughed louder.”

She thought he was trying to establish a superior intelligence. “What he didn’t know while he was talking all that time . . . was I was trying to decide just how much help I was gonna give him.”

At this point, the crowd erupted and went “ummm hmmmm.”

Peggy left that part out. Why?

It was like watching that room full of racists that POtuS used to sit with every Sunday, damning America.

[Carley]

Peggy’s smoking some funny stuff again.

[camle]

funny how they redeemed george wallace, but not trent lott.

seems redemption only goes one way.

[Enterprise]

Peggy, Peggy, Peggy. Do something constructive. Feed your cat, pick up some aluminum cans and plastic bottles, volunteer for a car wash.

[wintertime]

Peggy is a first class dunce!

Did she miss the part with the audience laughing and cheering at racist comments and beliefs? The members and leadership of the NAACP are racists! **THAT** is the story that Miss Peggy is deliberately overlooking.

Peggy is still living in a middle school wonderland. She wants to be accepted by the ruling elite clique.

[Enterprise]

"Did she miss the part with the audience laughing and cheering at racist comments and beliefs?"

Yes