July 20th, 2010
08:27 PM ET
13 years ago
NAACP 'snookered' over video of former USDA employee
Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) - The NAACP has retracted its original statement condemning comments made by a former Agriculture Department official who resigned after a video clip surfaced of her discussing a white farmer.
The NAACP said in a statement Tuesday that it was "snookered by Fox News" and conservative website publisher Andrew Breitbart.
"Having reviewed the full tape by Shirley Sherrod, who is the woman who was fired by the Department of Agriculture, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe that the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans," the statement from NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said.
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It's not just the NAACP but also the USDA & the American public who fell for the deceptive Fox video clip. A lot of people owe apologies to Shirley Sherrod.
That is why most public employees are supposed to receive hearings before being disciplined or discharged. Given that the "incident" occured before she was a public employee and that the farmer who was supposed to be her victim says she saved his farm in spite of any personal feelings, I'd say she was targeted with premeditation and malice aforethought. The First Amendment does not protect that kind of defamation. This sort of thing will stop only when it begins to cost the utterers money. Ms. Sherrod, no longer young, will get neither a pension nor another job,and her only recourse is to the courts. If the NAACP seriously rues its haste, let them provide her with an excellent lawyer.