Posted on 07/25/2010 5:35:59 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
CNN's "Reliable Sources" from Sunday is worth watching. American University's Jane Hall has the best quote, in my opinion: The former Fox contributor said Shirley Sherrod was the victim of "virtual world McCarthyism." I wasn't that disciplined or clever in my comments. I was angry at the attempt to make this story about the Obama administration (I've already stated my objections to how Obama handled the mess), to whitewash the role of Fox in the scandal, and to try to turn the tables on Shirley Sherrod and insist she's wrong to call either Fox or Breitbart "racist."
Our conversation quickly devolved into a weird discussion of Fox's timing: Did the right-wing propaganda arm run with the Sherrod story before or after her resignation/firing from her post at the USDA? I'm not entirely sure why that matters: What matters is she was slandered by two alleged news organizations, who didn't bother to try to get to the truth about her inspiring message of racial reconciliation to the NAACP. But I also want to state for the record: Fox ran with the story before Sherrod was fired. It was on FoxNews.com during the day on Monday July 19 – it's gone now, so I can't check the exact time it was posted.
But I don't need to: FoxNews.com actually bragged about having already hyped the story in a follow-up, after Sherrod was forced to quit. "The Agriculture Department announced Monday, shortly after FoxNews.com published its initial report on the video, that Sherrod had resigned." Likewise, Bill O'Reilly taped his performance, calling for Sherrod to resign, before she did so; the fact that by the time O'Reilly aired (he can't be bothered to work live at 8, like his competitors do? Poor guy) the resignation had been reported is meaningless.
But even after Sherrod was gone from USDA, Fox continued to hype Breitbart's false story. (As you can imagine, anti-racist activists Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich had a ball with it that night!) Then CNN and the Atlanta Journal Constitution discovered and disseminated the truth early Tuesday; Fox anchors were blathering about Sherrod's "racism." By Wednesday, Fox had ignored its own role peddling lies, and turned the Sherrod story into a problem for President Obama. How unusual for Roger Ailes's non-news organization.
Matt Lewis of Politics Daily got the job of defending Breitbart on CNN today; you can judge for yourself how well he did in the clip below. Lewis had already run a glowing interview with Breitbart this week; it ended with a breathless "Anything else you want folks to know about Andrew Breitbart?" as though he was talking to some young boy-band star who's new to national attention. And in a segment devoted to checking facts before you report them, Lewis tried to diminish my arguments by claiming I was doing the show from "Netroots Nation" in Las Vegas. Um, I've never been to that great lefty blogosphere convening; maybe next year. I was home. The attempted slur was silly.
The most important point is this: Fox News has, sadly, become the purveyor of a 50-state "Southern strategy," the plan perfected by Richard Nixon to use race to scare Southern Democrats into becoming Republicans by insisting the other party wasn't merely trying to fight racism, but give blacks advantages over whites (Fox News boss Roger Ailes, of course, famously worked for Nixon). Now Fox is using the election of our first black president to scare (mainly older) white people in all 50 states that, again, the Democratic party is run by corrupt black people trying to give blacks advantages over whites (MSNBC's Rachel Maddow laid out this history last week).
Consider four of the biggest stories the network has peddled since Obama entered the White House:
•Glenn Beck and others went after "green jobs czar" Van Jones, an African American, false claiming Jones signed a 9/11 "Truther" petition, correctly noting he'd said some not-nice things about Republicans. Jones resigned.
•Then the big story was ACORN, the community-organizing group run by a black woman, Bertha Lewis, and known for working in low-income black communities. First, remember, ACORN allegedly committed voter fraud in the 2008 election (in fact, the voter registration problems at ACORN were self-reported, and the fraud was on ACORN, because they paid some scam-artist workers to register voters that ultimately didn't exist – and thus wouldn't vote). Then Fox hyped the big Breitbart video lie – that James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles went into various ACORN offices dressed outlandishly as pimp and prostitute, and got advice on how to beat taxes and set up a child prostitution ring.) In fact, once law enforcement officials began examining those charges, they found they were false. Fox owner Rupert Murdoch's New York Post even had to headline its story: "ACORN set up by vidiots: DA."
•More recently, Fox has been pushing the story of how the Obama administration protected the New Black Panther Party from charges of voter intimidation, stemming from complaints by three Republican poll workers that the "Panthers" were intimidating mainly black voters in Philadelphia in 2008. No intimidated voters were ever found, and conservative Abigail Thernstrom blasted other GOP members of the U.S Civil Rights Commission for trying to use the non-story to "topple" Obama.
•Then came Shirley Sherrod. I have no doubt that, if CNN hadn't found Roger and Eloise Spooner, the white farmers helped by Sherrod, Fox would have peddled Breitbart's lies all week, to further its paranoid and politically driven narrative that Obama is a "racist" who's out to oppress white folks as "reparations" for the centuries of discrimination blacks have endured. It's crazy, sure, but Ailes worked for Richard Nixon, who pioneered the "Southern strategy."
Remember that Pat Buchanan has compared the Tea Partiers to "George Wallace voters," and bragged that he won them over to Nixon. Buchanan and Ailes are trying to do it again, and having a black Democrat in the White House makes them think it will be even easier this time.
Honestly, it won't be easier. There are too many people of every race who are genuinely not racist, or open to naked racial appeals. I truly believe the vast majority of American voters will judge Obama on his accomplishments or lack thereof in 2012, not the color of his skin. But older white voters scared by social change are a small but reliable base for Ailes and Buchanan to rely on.
Finally, host Howard Kurtz and poor Matt Lewis ended the segment talking about how Sherrod has now gone too far, calling Fox and Breitbart "racist." I defended Sherrod, and Lewis (and now Brent Bozell's minions at Newsbusters!) claimed I was arguing Sherrod should get a pass to say whatever she likes about race, because her father was murdered by a white man, who was exonerated by white Georgia justice.
Watch the video for yourself, and see what I said. First of all, the idea that any journalist is wasting his or her time policing Shirley Sherrod's rhetoric on race, after what she's been through, is absurd. But what I said was, I think her charges of racism by Fox and Breitbart are justified. Both are peddling a false story of all the nonexistent ways white people are hurt and/or oppressed by blacks; in particular, our black president. In my book that's racist; others may disagree. I didn't give Sherrod carte blanche to peddle hatred of white people (not that she would if I gave it to her.)
It's not my job, either way. Fox and Breitbart are far more powerful, and dangerous, than Shirley Sherrod. They should be ashamed of themselves, but they're shameless.
facts are a thing of the past
Joan used the word “race” 15 times. Not too shabby.
Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.
Facts get in the way of the narrative.
What do they smoke in their alternate universe?
This article is akin to the rant resident dumbass Bill Maher leveled at George Will after being put in his place at the ABC roundtable.
Poor Joan made a moronic statement that she thought she could get away with and got put in her place. Now she writes and ex post facto rewriting of what really happened.
I guess it’s all in the “context”.
It’s so sad when low-wattage people like Joan Walsh try to shine like the big boys...
I predicted the meme on Sherrod (when truth came out) would be “how dare you criticize her after all she’s been through.”
She would be the new Cindy Sheehan.
Sorry. I'm convinced.
Let's see... Holder's suppression of the suit against the New Black Panthers; Van Jones; Mark Lloyd's considered appointment; the Cambridge Police acting stupidly; redistributionist health and tax policies; bowing to the Saudis but dissing the English and the Israelis;... I could go on... and on... but dinner's ready.
Breitbart set out to demonstrate racism with the NAACP. He succeeded, but not entirely in the way he thought he was succeeding. Sherrod is without a doubt a racist. If she gets a pass to say whatever she wants about race because her father was murdered by a white racist, I get a pass to say whatever I want about women because my ex-wife was granted a divorce and obscene levels of support by a liberal feminist. I don’t buy either argument, because two wrongs don’t make a right. All I will say is that no one has to slur Joan — she’s a talking slur directed to herself everytime she opens her mouth.
Should this not be 57 States?
All I can say is Sherod now knows how Clarence Thomas felt. I wonder what Sherod’s take on that was. Somehow I think I know.
Joan lives in an alternate universe where the facts are whatever she thinks they are and time lines are convenient to the slanderous tales she wants to tell.
Gad, the spew. Get a paper towel and let’s wipe this up. uck.
The dems want to know what happened to the other 7 states.
The ad hominem attack is the last grasp of a debater who knows they have lost.
Pulling the “race” card is nothing more than an ad hominem attack.
“the Democratic party is run by corrupt black people trying to give blacks advantages over whites”
Yobama, Holder, Van Jones.
If the Marxists want to refer to speaking the truth as “scaring old, white people”, so be it.
Just so long as those “old, white people” are given the facts about the corrupt Kenyan usurper and his lapdogs, be they “people of color” or not.
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