Tom Vilsack should resign as Agriculture Secretary

Just so we understand:  An arch-conservative provocateur named Andrew Breitbart circulates a heavily-edited snippet of videotape which purports to show that an official at the United States Department of Agriculture, Shirley Sherrod, was favoring black people over white people. 

In actuality, the tape is from a speech given by Sherrod to the NAACP on March 27, but concerns an incident which happened 24 years ago when Sherrod was working for a private not-for-profit called the Federation of Southern Cooperatives. 

The tape was doctored so that it appeared Sherrod was making a point opposite to the one she was really making.  Fox News, of course, trumpeted the video as an example of "what racism looks like."  (This "electronic McCarthyism" is what passes for conservative "journalism" in America.)

Digby has significant portions of Sherrod's actual speech, which everyone in America should read in order to get an understanding of how racial issues have often been used to camoflage the true and unspoken issue in this country, which is class.  (The white couple at the center of the story support Sherrod.)

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, shaking in his boots that the conservative media would get after his case, promptly fired Sherrod.  She was called at least three times on her cell while she was driving on the freeway.  The last caller was Cheryl Cook, an undersecretary at the USDA, who told her pull over to the side of the road and then told her to quit because the story "was going to be on Glenn Beck tonight."

Later, Vilsack said that the USDA had an "unfortunate history" on race, which it indeed does because it used to blatantly discriminate against blacks.  Looks like that history repeats itself. 

Today, Vilsack says he'll reconsider because he's oh-so-concerned about being fair.  Sherrod said she doesn't know if she would accept reinstatement.  What she should do is sue the pants off Andrew Breitbart, Fox News, and Tom Vilsack--and/or, the person(s) in the White House who allegedly pressured Vilsack to fire Sherrod.  (Like Joan Walsh, I'd happily contribute to her legal fund.)

The American people did not elect a Democratic government in order to see them (repeatedly) punked by right-wing media, cowering in the face of political threat, and shaking in their boots at the prospect--oh, the humanity!--of being called "liberal."

  

Comments

[Hypatia]

We don't know that this was Vilsack's decision. There is every indication that pressure was applied from the White House. If that proves to be true, then an Administration head should roll, but not Vilsack's.

Although I suppose he might have resisted. But he probably would have had to quit, and American officials don't do that sort of thing.

I do not understand the Administration's anxiety about placating the implacable. The people they were trying to please will never vote for Obama and now they've probably made the most loyal members of Obama's base seriously upset. Good going, fellas.

[John Petty]

I know. I'm picking on Vilsack because he was her boss, and nobody knows who Cheryl Cook is. It does sound like the White House applied the pressure. I share your mystification on trying to "placate the implacable."

[Ed]

C'mon P.J. Fox was actually one of the most-restrained players on this whole thing. MSNBC, CNN, the NAACP, the Administration, virtually everyone ripped this woman and demanded her firing. Yet, the first Breitbart posting actually DID have the segments in that indicate it was a "pivot point" statement. To me, the enlightening part of the whole thing was the audience's live reaction. I think Breitbart's whole point was to see how the Administration would react to an issue of "reverse discrimination" (an oxymoron, if ever there was one). As usual, Barry and the Gang handled it ineptly, inappropriately and ineffectually.

[Ed]

Besides, where's a guy with a name like Vilsack gonna get another job, except maybe at a pickle factory?

... Oh wait! Never mind -- that's VLASIC

:-)

[John Petty]

I don't know if Breitbart has any agenda other than dishonest provocateuring. Now, he claims he feels sorry for Sherrod.

I agree that his point was "reverse discrimination," so much so that he tried to invent it. Why is all this energy going into discrediting black people as racist? Guilt?