Well, don’t feel bad; apparently, neither does anybody else. Amazing how all that Lefty support for the African-American woman more or less dissipated as soon as she could no longer be used to attack a white male apostate: mind you, I use ‘amazing’ in a strictly post-modern, hipster ironic sense. Which is very weird of me, personally, but then it’s been a weird kind of day.
That’s it. This is just me being a pain: as the philosopher once said, it’s my hobby.
Support among the Online Left for Sherrod’s defamation suit just abruptly became a good deal less reliable. Because it really wasn’t about Sherrod; it was about getting to Andrew Breitbart. And Breitbart has passed, so she just won’t matter to a lot of them anymore. Oh, it won’t happen right away; but this issue just started the long, downward arc towards obscurity.
My advice is that Sherrod not take it too personally. After all, it’s not like the Online Left particularly considered her to be a person in the first place. She was a tool, and the tool is no longer necessary. This is the way of the world, or at least the way of the portion of the world dedicated to the Cause…
Yes, Maureen Dowd.
We may not have a “nation of cowards” on race, as Attorney General Eric Holder contended, but we may have a West Wing of cowards on race.
Although I’m somewhere between Holder and Dowd on this one: we have a national political party of cowards on race, and it’s the Democratic one. As we’ve just had Andrew Breitbart graphically, if perhaps not quite deliberately, demonstrate. Continue reading QotD, Maureen Dowd edition.
Well, given that the network apparently has the power to go back in time and take over the President’s mind… that’s some pretty god-like power right there, yes?
[Shirley] Sherrod may be the only official ever dismissed because of the fear that Fox host Glenn Beck might go after her. As Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tried to pressure her into resigning, Sherrod says Deputy Undersecretary Cheryl Cook called her Monday to say “do it, because you’re going to be on ‘Glenn Beck’ tonight.”
As it turns out, the White House panicked unduly: Continue reading #rsrh White House declares Fox to be a god.
[UPDATE: The previous link was incorrect; now fixed. My apologies. – ML]
(Via AoSHQ) Every time I think that the Shirley Sherrod story cannot make the administration look more foolish, new details come out [link fixed – ML].
…three Democratic sources said deputy chief of staff Jim Messina singled out the White House’s initial response to the incident for praise in the regular 8:30 a.m. staff meeting Tuesday morning.
[snip]
One source, who is unhappy with the administration’s handling of the incident, paraphrased Messina’s remarks: “We could have waited all day — we could have had a media circus — but we took decisive action, and it’s a good example of how to respond in this atmosphere.”
No, in fact, it was not a good example*. It’s hard to see how it could be a worse one. The Right is hardly abashed that Ms. Sherrod ended up being maligned by the Obama administration and defended by Glenn Beck; the Left is infuriated** that their precious man-god stomped all over their favorite narrative before it could even get started; and the Middle is mostly going to take away from all of this the sight of the White House apologizing to a black woman for passing instant judgment on her based on the color of her skin, rather than the content of her character.
And, oh yes: there’s a media circus, too.
Moe Lane
Continue reading Jim Messina: heckuva job on Sherrod, guys. [Corrected.]
While Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack starts up the job of pretending that it was all his fault that Shirley Sherrod got fired, the administration that actually canned the woman may be beginning its own process. This is how it starts, you know:
There’s an arc to these things. Next you hear about ‘every confidence in [X],’ then it’s ‘the President stands behind [X] 100%,’ then it’s ‘[X] has decided to spend more time with his/her family.’ The resumes to DC lobbying firms shortly follow.
You know, there’s been a lot of discussion on just what happened here with Ms. Sherrod, and whether Andrew Breitbart’s going to take a hit from all of this. Let me put it this way: if he has managed to mousetrap the Obama administration into hastily taking a position that can only be salvaged by the blood sacrifice of the Secretary of Agriculture for (transferred) racial bias… then no. No, he will not.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
