I Don't Need Your Civil War...

I must admit to falling victim to a bit of hype as well as having a slight misunderstanding of the facts last night, as I posted last night about Shirley Sherrod and her statements at an NAALCP event last year.

It seems that the truth has now come out, and the fact is that Ms. Sherrod did not make statements of inflammatory nature, as I believed at the onset of the story. Her words, when taken out of context, could be misconstrued to be racist in intent, but they were part of a larger and more important lesson that we all are learning from today.

The left wing blogosphere is on fire right now, and the NAACP is in full defense mode. As usual, they are both attempting to place blame on Fox News Channel for discussing, broadcasting, and hyping the Sherrod story in an overt attempt to force the regime's administration's hand.

Instead, the point of interest in the Shirley Sherrod story is this: The Barack Hussein Obama regime administration had ordered and forced Shirley Sherrod's "voluntary" resignation, and the NAALCP had issued a harsh condemnation, all before Fox News Channel had ever run one segment about the story.

Ultimately, it seems the regime administration shot itself in the foot... can I still say that, based on the current standing of the Second Amendment?

The poor management skills of this group of rank amateurs, as well as their obvious instinct to overreact at the slightest hint of race in any story that might cross their radar screen, led them to essentially force the termination of employment of a woman who otherwise is by all accounts (including the account of the White farmer previously discussed) of sound moral character and good judgment.

The source of all the fun is Andrew Breitbart's Biggovernment.com, where the outtake of Sherrod's NAALCP speech first appeared.

In a stroke of pure genius, Breitbart manipulated the leftist media to perfection.

He posted two segments of Sherrod's speech - the first offering what seem to be racist statements, which are most definitely accompanied by a perceived race-induced reception of laughter and mild applause from the crowd.

The second offered Sherrod's clear adulation for government work, as she offers to the crowd, "Have you heard of anybody in the federal government losing their job?"

As it turns out, the NAALCP has a full video of the very speech being discussed, and it is available at YouTube, here, on the NAALCP YouTube page.

It is extremely interesting to note that the subject of Shirley Sherrod's speech was the exact opposite of the reason she was condemned by the NAALCP in this statement:

[...]Racism is about the abuse of power. Sherrod had it in her position at USDA. According to her remarks, she mistreated a white farmer in need of assistance because of his race.

We are appalled by her actions, just as we are with abuses of power against farmers of color and female farmers.

Her actions were shameful. While she went on to explain in the story that she ultimately realized her mistake, as well as the common predicament of working people of all races, she gave no indication she had attempted to right the wrong she had done to this man.

Shirley Sherrod appears to be a good person, done wrong by a rush to judgment.

I, for one, offer my apology to her, and to anyone who was misled by my offering in last night's post. I did not take the time to fully investigate the story, and I allowed my first impression to guide my thoughts.

I, however, am only one man, and am only capable of a certain amount of research and investigation.

The Obama administration, the NAALCP, and every leftist media outlet (including Rachel Maddow of MSNBC) have teams of researchers and should have had their facts straight before moving forward.

I hope they might learn their lesson. Context matters.

The behavior of the Obama administration and the "mainstream media" are leading down a very dangerous path. If we are not careful, we will be at odds with our fellow Americans over issues as meaningless as skin color.

I, for one, don't need their Civil War.