post of the day

i simply decided to steal this post outright since it hit exactly all the right notes — notes that need to be hit. will the white house hear them? more importantly, will obama deliver the much-needed coda? ¹

vilsack will review decision to fire sherrod by brooklynbadboy MSNBC is reporting that agriculture secretary tom vilsack has now decided he wants to conduct a review of the facts with respect to ms. sherrod: vilsack's statement came after the NAACP posted the full video of sherrod's comments tuesday night and retracted its earlier condemnation of her. "i am of course willing and will conduct a thorough review and consider additional facts to ensure to the american people we are providing services in a fair and equitable manner," Vilsack said. so, if i have this correctly, breitbart and fox news burps, she get's fired immediately. CNN and the NAACP release the undisputed facts, and now there must be a thorough review. (facepalm) i want to return to something the white house keeps saying in response to ms. sherrod: shirley sherrod, a former USDA employee who resigned after a controversial video surfaced, told CNN tuesday that members of the obama administration "harassed" her and demanded she resign her post immediately. in an interview with CNN, sherrod said she repeatedly fielded calls on monday during a long car ride, during which officials insisted that she pull over to the side of the road and quit her post. "they asked me to resign, and, in fact, they harassed me as i was driving back to the state office from west point, georgia yesterday," sherrod told CNN. "i had at least three calls telling me the white house wanted me to resign...and the last one asked me to pull over to the side of the road and do it." ... sherrod said the final call came from cheryl cook, an undersecretary at the department of agriculture. sherrod said white house officials wanted her to quit immediately because the controversy was "going to be on glenn beck tonight." "we did not pressure USDA or ms. sherrod," a white house official reportedly wrote in an email on tuesday to the washington Post. i guess the buck stops somewhere else. the white house needs to get off this stance and start showing some sympathy toward ms. sherrod. she has, clearly, been done terribly wrong by the white supremacist fringe of the republican party. the white house acts like they are afraid of a bunch of bigots. martin luther king, jr. would be sickened by how this white house has behaved toward this woman. some racist bigot makes an accusation against her and they don't even waste one minute before firing her without review. yet when the truth comes out, they don't re-hire her on the spot. then, and only then, are they willing to conduct a review. disgusting. if they have the decency to offer her the job back, i hope she turns it down. i wouldn't want to work for people who were so easily pushed around by a by an internet skinhead like breitbart or a certified nutcase like beck. the white house should at least apologize to ms. sherrod and accept responsibility for how this kind and lovely public servant has been treated. that would be the minimum of something to show breitbart and the rest of his skinhead crew that decent americans will not be intimidated by the likes of scum like them. you know what is so pathetic about all this? now that the truth has come out, glenn beck, the same glenn back who had the administration cowering in fear, is attacking the administration over firing her in the first place: how and why would you force the resignation of someone who is just relating a story of 24-year-old incident to make a point? how many times when a controversy comes up have we heard that someone was "misquoted" or they "misspoke" or we're told that "the only point they were simply making was that ..." and then some point that bears no resemblance to the one they made; or they were just "taken out of context?" now here's a possible actual example of someone taken completely out of context and they immediately get rid of her. can you believe this white house is being pushed around by these people? update: it appears ms. sherrod sees the old boss in a different light: the woman at the center of a racially tinged firestorm involving the obama administration and the NAACP said wednesday she doesn't know if she'd return to her job at the agriculture department, even if asked. "i am just not sure how i would be treated there," shirley sherrod said in a nationally broadcast interview. i agree. now get yourself a damn good attorney ms. sherrod.

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1) face it, obama: breitbart and beck were aiming for you when they went after sherrod and they've so far won that much at least, since it's now squarely on you to snatch their victory from the jaws of your defeat — and on center stage where everyone can see.