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Go Home The Conservative Pseudojournalist Method

JONATHAN CHAIT JULY 21, 2010

The Conservative Pseudojournalist Method

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

By now, the story of USDA staffer Shirley Sherrod is familiar. Conservative media magnate Andrew Breitbart obtained a video of her speaking to an NAACP convention. In it she discussed not wanting to help a farmer because he was white. Here was explosive evidence of the reverse racism that Breitbart and some conservatives find so endemic. She was quickly fired.

It turned out that Breitbart's story was wildly misleading. Sherrod in fact told a story in which she recounted earlier in her career, while working for a nonprofit, feeling resentment about helping a white farmer. But, she continued, she later understood that such an attitude was wrong. The white farmer later testified that Sherrod in fact helped them save their farm.

Breaitbart claims he did not splice the video, and that he obtained it in the misleading, fragmentary form in which he published it. Coincidentally, Breitbart was the victim of the exact same trick. Last year, Breitbart published video purporting to show a man dressed as a pimp soliciting help from Acorn. It turned out, the video was deceptively edited. He dressed as a pimp for the cameras, but wore conservative attire to meet with Acorn. In meeting with Acorn, he presented himself not as a pimp but as a law student trying to rescue his prostitute girlfriend from a pimp. Yet the narrative presented by Breitbart took hold from the outset. When pressed, he claimed here too that he was the victim of deceptive editing.

A similar tactic is at work in the Daily Caller's expose on Journolist. It is the selective presentation of fragments of data, containing multiple factual misstatements, and filtered through the reporter's deceptive analytical take, to present a "discovery" as something wildly at odds with reality. The story takes hold as news because it is, literally, new information. But the information bears no resemblance to what the conservative journalist claims it is. This seems to be the method of the new breed of conservative pseudo-journalists.

The mentality at work is not hard to understand. The proprietors of this story believe that the mainstream media is fundamentally a liberal conspiracy, whose claims of objectivity are not merely an unattained or unattainable idea but a lie to cover a political agenda. Here is Breitbart:

No steadfast journalism rule is unbendable when it comes to justifying and protecting the racket that is modern journalism, specifically, political journalism in the United States today. The ends justify the means for the Democrat Media Complex. They lie when they claim to be objective. They lie when they claim to be unbiased, because these so called “truth seekers” are guilty of engaging in open political warfare. ...

most media organizations are either complicit by participation in the treachery that is Journolist, or are guilty of sitting back and watching Alinsky warfare being waged against all that challenged the progressive orthodoxy. The scandal predictably involves journalists posing as professors posing as experts. But dressed down they are nothing but street thugs.

When this is your analysis of mainstream media ethics -- when you think the mainstream media is not merely failing to overcome its liberal bias but is actually street thugs -- that informs the kind of journalism you produce. There is room for enterprising journalism from conservatives. The problem is that the product of sites like Breitbart's Big Government and the Daily Caller is not journalism but pseudo-journalism. It does not hew to conventional journalistic standards. It is opposition research -- bits of data placed in the most damaging possible context and packaged in such a way as to encourage other reporters or pundits to pick it up and hopefully repeat its analytic thrust.

Now, opposition research can be useful, and it often produces good journalistic leads. But people who do hew to conventional journalistic standards do need to be very cautious when handling pseudo-journalistic stories. You can't assume that the information is being provided in context, or that the interpretive frame bears any relation to reality.

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50 comments

An NCAA convention?

- gary21cp

July 21, 2010 at 4:27pm

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For some people, it's always March Madness.

- miceelf

July 21, 2010 at 4:31pm

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Anyone know if libel law applies?

- sighthnd

July 21, 2010 at 4:33pm

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Good grief, the "Democrat Media Complex": not only is that ungrammatical, it is also absurd as a concept. Meanwhile, over at The Daily Palin, which doubles as The Daily Anti-Israel News, Andrew has a characteristically hilarious post, totally unintentional, of course. Under the head "Jew-Baiters," he writes about being set upon by The Tablet, along with Glenn Greenwald, Stephen Walt, and Philip Weiss. This is an ancient tactic; banner the maunderings of extremists to make yourself look moderate, even though you yourself are an extremist.

- liberal reformer

July 21, 2010 at 4:47pm

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I like the way David Frum closes his piece on the subject: There will be no apology or statement of regret for distributing a doctored tape to defame and destroy someone. There will be not even a flutter of interest among conservatives in discussing Breitbart’s role. By the morning of July 21, the Fox & Friends morning show could devote a segment to the Sherrod case without so much as a mention of Breitbart’s role. The central fact of the Sherrod story has been edited out of the conservative narrative, just as it was edited out of the tape itself. When people talk of the "closing of the conservative mind" this is what they mean: not that conservatives are more narrow-minded than other people — everybody can be narrow minded — but that conservatives have a unique capacity to ignore unwelcome fact. When Dan Rather succumbed to the forged Bush war record hoax in 2004, CBS forced him into retirement. Breitbart is the conservative Dan Rather, but there will be no discredit, no resignation for him. Instead, conservatives are consumed with a new snippets-out-of-context uproar, the latest round of JournoList quotations. Here at last is proof of the cynical machinations of the hated liberal media! As to the cynical machinations of conservative media — well, as the saying goes, the fish never notices the water through which it swims.

- Geoff G

July 21, 2010 at 4:53pm

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Triumph might be a bit overwrought and definitely premature.

- icarusr

July 21, 2010 at 4:53pm

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My question: who is leaking the Journolist emails to carlson?

- suzanne

July 21, 2010 at 5:16pm

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sighthnd: I've been thinking about this all day. I'm not a lawyer or an expert, but I do think that there's at least enough for a good libel attorney to make a case. Here's the crucial thing: forget about the redemption story, the harrumphs from the crowd, the fact that she's now friends with the white farmer, etc. etc. The crucial issue for a libel or slander lawsuit would be this: Breitbart and the edited video both explicitly state that Sherrod admitted to neglect of her federal duties (and possibly, unlawful conduct), when in fact she did no such thing. Here's from Breitbart's initial post (http://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/2010/07/19/video-proof-the-naacp-awards-racism2010/#idc-cover): "In her meandering speech to what appears to be an all-black audience, this federally appointed executive bureaucrat lays out in stark detail, that her federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions." Even more explicit is the message in the video itself. Here is the text which the video displays before it shows Sherrod: "USDA Rural Development spends over $1.2 Billion in the State of Georgia each year. On March 27, 2010, while speaking at the NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet Ms. Sherrod admits that in her federally appointed position, overseeing over a billion dollars ... She discriminates against people due to their race." Of course, now it includes a disclaimer explaining that the actions she was describing didn't involve her current job, but her position at a non-profit group nearly a quarter century ago. But that disclaimer hasn't been there the entire time.

- ulexamp

July 21, 2010 at 5:28pm

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Sorry, my last comment got kind of jarbled. Anyways, here are the relevant quotes from Breitbart's initial blog post: "In her meandering speech to what appears to be an all-black audience, this federally appointed executive bureaucrat lays out in stark detail, that her federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions." Even more explicit was the text in the video itself. Here are the words: "USDA Rural Development spends over $1.2 Billion in the State of Georgia each year. On March 27, 2010, while speaking at the NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet Ms. Sherrod admits that in her federally appointed position, overseeing over a billion dollars ... She discriminates against people due to their race." Of course, now there's a disclaimer explaining that her statements were about her job 24 years ago, not her current job "overseeing over a billion dollars." But it's not a slam dunk from there. According to the AP Style Guide's Media Law Briefing, (assuming that Sherrod is a "public figure"), Sherrod would have to show that Breitbart, etc., acted with "actual malice," a phrase which doesn't mean what most people assume it means. According to the courts, it normally means that a reporter's investigation "has revealed either insufficient information to support the allegations in good faith or information which creates substantial doubt as to the truth of published allegations." Breitbart claims that he didn't see the full video before airing it. Shouldn't he have realized that, without the full video, he was leaping to a conclusion about what she was saying? It's a bit of a close call, because journalists make assumptions all the time. Of course, if he deliberately edited those things out--or asked whoever was behind the video to do so--then it's game on. And here's the fun part: the lawyers might be able to subpoena e-mails from Breitbart to confirm this. And here's another fun part: if a jury decides that Breitbart committed libel, then Sherrod could also sue Fox News, and any other media outlets which created this false impression. Repeating libel is libel, even if you don't realize it is.

- ulexamp

July 21, 2010 at 5:43pm

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So Breitbart has been the "victim" of the same "trick" twice now. Fool me once, as the saying goes, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. I think it's obvious that Breitbart is not a victim of trickery but rather the knowing, deliberate perpetrator of falsehood. He is a professional liar. But even assuming a more generous interpretation of the man, the absolute best that can be said of him is that he is so easily fooled that he cannot be trusted as a source of information. To the extent that anyone else repeats something Breitbart publishes without independent corroboration, that person is not a journalist.

- rhubarbs

July 21, 2010 at 5:58pm

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Suing FOX News should be a legal industry. Read Breitbart profile in New Yorker, he is what happens when a Brentwood raised Jew joins a college fraternity and tries to keep up with the drinking of his gentile brothers.

- NR027810

July 21, 2010 at 6:03pm

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Conservatives screamed for Sherrods head based on the video and when the Obama administration did so, screamed that Obama threw her unjustly under the bus. It must be wonderful to believe you are never, ever in the wrong, though they frighten the hell out of me.

- blackton

July 21, 2010 at 6:45pm

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Tu quoque!

- lsernoff

July 21, 2010 at 7:19pm

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According to Breitbart's site, the story is still relevant, and he owes no apologies, b/c he was only highighting that people in the audience laughed when Sherrod described not being sure if she wanted to help this farmer or not. I suppose this is what liberals get for being so good at parsing words.

- jmarshall

July 21, 2010 at 7:43pm

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I was almost ready to believe that 'professional liar' Brietbart (nice tag, rhub; that's what I call Limbaugh) had been set up by someone on the left. Or, well, to the left of him. Maybe even someone with connections to the Obama Admin. Up until the administration completely botched the whole damn thing themselves, of course.

- W_Bombay

July 21, 2010 at 8:39pm

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An example of the frustration progressives have with this administration: caving when the rethug wingers say "boo" but are lying liars. Pathetic. Call him a liar JC for crying out loud. Why be mealymouthed about? Here to hoping Ms. Sherrod give them some kind of fight. And I pray it taught this administration a lesson but I doubt it.

- tnmats

July 21, 2010 at 9:16pm

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Alas, we really need to examine the competence of those other than Breitbart. This was an event attended by the NAACP and filmed by the NAACP. The NAACP failed to look at the full tape, and before Fox even ran the story on TV, they denounced her and the administration (or USDA) fired her. Of course, those so quick to denounce Brietbart of not telling the full story are also not telling the full story. Funny how that works. BTW, Breitbart is how Michael Moore operates--selectively telling you the truth such that you form a wrong opinion. If you like MM but AB turns your stomach, then you are wired with a bias. :)

- seattleeng

July 21, 2010 at 9:35pm

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Seattle: do you try to sound deranged, or is your head so totally in the rectum of the Republican Party that you cannot actually see straight any more? First, blame victim, or the nigger, whichever one is the closest; then, blame liberals - "they do it too!!!" Have you no sense of decency? I mean, when you come across as more of a lunatic fringer than Beck, it is saying something. Having read your tripe, I have to take a shower, I feel so sullied.

- icarusr

July 22, 2010 at 12:18am

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Icarusr, which part of what I said was not true? I didn't blame the victim, I blamed the NAACP for not even looking at their own tape, and the Obama admin for worrying more about media fall out than doing the right thing.

- seattleeng

July 22, 2010 at 2:04am

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Another example of this phenomenon that received far less attention came at the end of Scott Brown's recent campaign for the U.S. Senate. In a campaign visit to Boston on behalf of Democratic candidate Martha Coakley two days before the election, President Obama mentioned six times the pickup truck Brown had been driving around the state. Even though Obama was deriding the truck as a campaign stunt, conservative media outlets insinuated he was mocking people who drive pickup trucks. One could argue the president should be used to remarks being taken out of context, especially in a campaign. But Shirley Sherrod was a low-level government employee who did not deserve this public humiliation. Breitbart's ruse was indeed despicable, but not atypical of the dirty tricks people all over the political landscape play all the time. What's truly shameful here are the mainstream media outlets that recirculated this video without bothering to get the rest of the story. The White House was similarly hasty in demanding her resignation; I can see why she would feel reluctant to accept her new job offer. She deserves her old job back, and we all need to move on.

- drheingold

July 22, 2010 at 3:03am

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Seattle: I think Ick went a little hard. Most of what you said is indeed true. Of course you did 'selectively' package it. (You are most skilled at the backhand)

- jmarshall

July 22, 2010 at 3:40am

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ps Seattle: Just for fun - since we're being truthful - what did Sherrod say that was wrong?

- jmarshall

July 22, 2010 at 3:50am

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seattle didn't say anything even remotely controversial. Doubt he'll get any airtime on any network.

- jacko

July 22, 2010 at 7:37am

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I think a bigger story is going on here. There is a true pattern at FOX. The constant fear mongering (i.e. Nazi imagery associated with Obama, etc.) has now fallen into a perhaps even more disgusting pattern. How many stories have been done telling the FOX demographic (older and white) to be afraid, be very afraid, of black people coming to get them. The fake ACORN stories, the fake Sherod story, the constant coverage of the non-story of the New Black Panther Party. As I have said before, Rupert Murdoch I hope the money was worth what you did to this country.

- MikeB.

July 22, 2010 at 9:27am

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Seattle: in advocacy - any advocacy, up to an including Goebbles/Murdoch-like propaganda - one of the oldest, and sadly most effective, tricks of the game is to make a side-issue the principal issue, and to go on the offence when no moral defence remains. Your post, and the response, are prime examples. The point is not whether the NAACP or Obama were at fault here for their reactions. I think it would be a really dense and pathetically ideological liberal/Democrat (about three people living in the wilds of Vermont, near the Quebec border, and two more in Greenwich Village) who would have anything nice to say about the firing and the libelling of Sherrod by the Administration or the NAACP. Any reasonable human being should, and would, be concerned. BUT ... It was Breitbart, the darling of FucksNews and related ideological platforms, who put up the edited video and pushed it. And while suddenly every Republican fuckhead is suddenly concerned for Sherrod, you all - even now, even when the deception is playing again and again - have not the moral courage, the balls, to say, "this was not right." I mean, not the firing, but the original deception. Read Frum, for Heaven's sake; he's one of your own and he is disgusted. And Breitbart is at it again, maligning Sherrod in an other obvious distortion. Like any master propagandist, you seek to divert attention from the source of the corruption. Obama and the NAACP have been cowed by the Right Wing media to react - that is their and our problem. But the bigger evil is the cowing, the violence, tha race-baiting, the divisiveness, the yelling and screaming - and then, when the deceptions are revealed, the innocent, "What, me?" look, the pointing of the finger, the inability, contrary to any principle of conservatism in two thousand years of thought, to take any personal responsibility ... that sir, is the moral failing, YOUR moral failing, that sullies anything it touches, including the electroncs passing between your keyboard and this site.

- icarusr

July 22, 2010 at 10:31am

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Jacko: "seattle didn't say anything even remotely controversial." The day we measure the morality of a statement and of a position by how controversial it is, is the day we have to pack it in as a species. In any event, that IS the problem, the fact that an oik can divert attention from an issue by, yet again, blaming the niggers, and it would not be "remotely controversial".

- icarusr

July 22, 2010 at 10:34am

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Mr. Chait: this is a coincidence, right? You are not pilfering from Red Maryland? Red Maryland The Premier blog of conservative and Republican politics and ideas in the Free State. Wednesday, July 21, 2010 Pseudo-journalism and The Daily Caller’s Exposé of the Partisan Rhetoric of Journolist’s Journalists --Richard E. Vatz Sociologist and insightful-but-naive observer Herbert Gans wrote in his 2004 update of Deciding What’s News that “...journalists get more of the blame for the state of the news than they used to, but they continue to be primarily messengers who mainly simplify and dramatize what their sources say and do.” The fact is that the press is more and more involved in what I call the “rhetoric of news,” which is the determining of what news qualifies for the national agenda and what it means, both according to journalists’ predilections. The relatively new conservative journal The Daily Caller yesterday published a bombshell that should not have been so surprising: the lack of journalistic attention to the threat to then-Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential aspirations, his long association and ideational kinship to the wild and crazy, America-hating Rev. Jeremiah Wright (“God Damn America”), was due to news management (some of which, as described by my colleague, Mark Newgent, involved employees of The Baltimore Sun). As with all rhetorical endeavors, the Fourth Estate to a large extent determines what matters get coverage, how they are covered, and how long they are covered. When the possible world-threatening events in Iran are ignored for weeks or months at a time, it is a choice by journalists (and some political persuaders) to ignore it. When relevant or irrelevant gubernatorial matters become the focus of news coverage in a state, it is the choice of the news media to mention or not mention and investigate or not investigate them. Many in Maryland recall the 2002 Baltimore Sun election coverage which ignored racist remarks made by the Democrats, remarks which were not even mentioned until a major political player would reference them weeks after their being made. The Daily Caller reveals that in 2008, members of Journolist, a listserv composed of media writers and other liberal activists, were upset that at an ABC News debate George Stephanopolous and Charlie Gibson were asking questions about the Obama-Wright relationship. As a result, The Daily Caller reports that “employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.” Some Journolists put together a letter decrying the salience accorded to the Senator’s Wright connection, calling it a “revolting descent into tabloid journalism” and one which distracted from “the great issues of our time...” One suggestion by Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent to change to a more relevant topic was to label, say, that well-known racist executive editor of The Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes, as such. Are these Journolists in any sense of the word what used to be called “journalists?” Fred Barnes a "racist?" Appalling. Fortunately, there was dissent to such journalistic-rhetorical misdirection and slander, but Ackerman certainly redeemed his compromised soul with this rejoinder (as quoted by The Daily Caller) to those who disagreed: “I’m not saying OBAMA should do this. I’m saying WE should do this.” The lasting lesson from this little drama should be that what the press covers and the interpretations therein are not “Deciding What’s News” (in Gans’ phrase), but the results of the values that news purveyors bring to bear on the inexhaustible number of matters and issues coverable. The major ideological influence in mainstream news is liberal, with a minority of journalistic influence being conservative, and that will continue to create the fodder for legitimate criticism. The Journolistic management of the Obama-Wright connection, abetted by the inexplicable lack of effort by the McCain campaign to oppose it, will remain another stain on the claims of journalistic disinterest by the mainstream media. Professor Vatz teaches Media Criticism at Towson University Posted by Vatz at 7/21/2010 11:59:00 AM Labels: "Journalistic Ethics" Journolist "The Daily Caller" "Herbert Gans" "President Barack Obama" "Jeremiah Wright"

- Vatz

July 22, 2010 at 10:55am

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No, he’s not a pseudo anything he’s just a liar and a propagandist. The insatiable and lazy media (mainstream and otherwise) will run with anything that is part of a saleable narrative that will get ratings. On occasion (like this one) the lies of the propagandist are so obvious that they are easy to see, and in this case fix. In others the stories have longer “arcs”. But the liar is still a liar. And he’s still in business because the “mainstream” media is still lazy enough to feed him.

- 12alainu

July 22, 2010 at 11:01am

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No, he’s not a pseudo anything he’s just a liar and a propagandist. The insatiable and lazy media (mainstream and otherwise) will run with anything that is part of a saleable narrative that will get ratings. On occasion (like this one) the lies of the propagandist are so obvious that they are easy to see, and in this case fix. In others the stories have longer “arcs”. But the liar is still a liar. And he’s still in business because the “mainstream” media is still lazy enough to feed him.

- 12alainu

July 22, 2010 at 11:02am

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Joseph Welch's retort to McCarthy is one of the few things left to say to the conservative commitariat: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" This whole episode shows they have no decency. And this is coming from the morality police themselves. Icky explained the pattern they're using perfectly, which shows they have no moral fiber left. Smearing a lower level government official for no reason shows they have no scruples and deserve to be treated as such. The administration has zero defense here, proving yet again they're cowed by a right-wing lies, but, the liars in the right wing press deserve all the scorn for fabricating a lie and then trying to deflect from being caught. The Soviet and Nazi propagandists would be proud. What a miserable decent for a group of people who fancy themselves as staunch anti-communists and anti-fascists.

- tnmats

July 22, 2010 at 11:05am

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Tnmats writes: "The administration has zero defense here, proving yet again they're cowed by a right-wing lies..." Yes. My disgust for the antics of the right-wing liers in this case is closely matched by disgust for the readiness with which administration officials bought the story at face value. Damn it, by now they should understand that when stories like this emerge from the dank pit of inequity which is the conservative ministry of propaganda, the source must be carefully considered, & the details carefully validated, before awarding a seal of veracity. It strikes me that even if most people out there come to understand that Breibert's story was a con job, the ulitimate effect will be a negative for the administration, in that this episode only serves to illustrate the whimpy spinelessness & lack of conviction for whch liberals are often suspect. For the right wing con-jobbers, this story was a no-lose deal, given the hare-brained response of the administration.

- Haole45

July 22, 2010 at 11:44am

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Ick. If you want to throw in with Michael Moore and Breitbart I guess that's your business. Personally I think you are smarter than that but I could be wrong. I also, judging your offerings, think you have more integrity than the likes of either one of these chaps and are disinclined to ratify. I certainly don't ratify any of the bullshit this entire little contra-doodle has inspired. Unfortunately it seems that there is a flourishing market.

- jacko

July 22, 2010 at 11:48am

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To sum up for myself, Icaruser is right to get a little hot about the Seattler's comments. The latter has the "I just mean well/happy balance" of the false moderate who tries to "see both sides" of an issue. Unfortunately this is not a PBS News Hours discussion of forming a new national park: pro or con---logging industry speaks to environmentalists. This is, so to speak, more clear cut. It is a lie, a fabrication, further demonstration of a pattern of overt deception.

- atlasqq

July 22, 2010 at 11:49am

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Icarusr, would it kill you to stop using that word? Twice now?? Please. JMarshall writes: "Just for fun - since we're being truthful - what did Sherrod say that was wrong?" Sure, I'll bite. * A rank and file government employee must not be partisan. She was hyperpartisan. * Can you imagine a tea-partier telling a poor black person it would be best if they were taken care of by "one of their kind?" Can you imagine a government employee that was also a very vocal tea partier saying that while giving a speech? I suspect the left would have him fired. And it'd be hard to argue with that. * While Sherrod was working her way up to a "teaching moment" in her speech--a point where she notes she learned it wasn't about black versus white and instead have versus have-not--the crowd didn't know that. And their very vocal approval at during Sharrod's described points of retribution were bothersome.

- seattleeng

July 22, 2010 at 12:18pm

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tnamts writes "Smearing a lower level government official for no reason shows they have no scruples and deserve to be treated as such." So, all the low-level DOJ folks that lost their job over the attorney firings (that Obama just decided were justified), and camping out at the house of John Yoo for memos he wrote, and naming the CIA agents involved with interrogation... You agree these attacks are all bad now???

- seattleeng

July 22, 2010 at 12:37pm

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Atlas: "logging industry speaks to environmentalists. This is, so to speak, more clear cut." Nice pun :). Jacko: I am not sure what you mean by "throwing in with Michael Moore and Breitbart". I have not seen anything of the former since "Roger and Me" and, as is clear, I detest the latter.

- icarusr

July 22, 2010 at 12:42pm

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Seattle: the verb "sully" bothers you? Good - because your posts make me feel I need to have a full-on body scrub just reading them. You don't give up, which is good - because the more you write the more it is clear that your initial attack on the NAACP and Obama was hardly motivated by a real concern for the injustice done to Sherrod - an injustice that even Beck noted and commented on. Your latest offerings have the benefit of letting your prejudices hang out openly. Good for you - and for the rest of us, because at least there is no pretense - none whatever - of "look at that bad bad Obama boy who done so wrong to poor wittow Sherrod ...!" "the crowd didn't know that. And their very vocal approval at during Sharrod's described points of retribution were bothersome." Right. You are a master tool of propagandists and I have just realised why you keep parrotting lines instead of actually arguing a point. Because you are totally incapable of understanding Rhetoric, so naturally you fall for all the simplest tricks of the trade as long as they confirm your prejudices. I mean, "the crowd didn't know" what Sherrod was building up to? OF COURSE NOT. It's a principle of rhetoric, of public speaking, of advocacy, of persuasion: you build UP to your point. You speak to the prejudices of your audience, and then, using the weight of those prejudices, you put the ugliness of the prejudice in front of them and persuade them they are wrong. This is Public Speaking 101; that you either do not see it or try to distort the point of it, speaks of your moral and intellectual vacuity and nothing more. And her audience initially approved of the "come uppance"? Did it? I don't know. But ... that hardly speaks ill of Sherrod and, again, is another ruse to divert attention from the lies, damned lies, and distortortions of Breitbart. Breitbart and the conservative media machine LIED and they DISTORTED and now that the lie has been discovered and denounced, all you guys can do is say, "Oh, those niggers in the White House and the NAACP, they are the real culprits; and if not them, then the niggers in the NAACP talk who nodded in approval to Sherrod's story, they're the real racists." Sad, pathetic, obvious ... the question is, why do you insist on digging your own intellectual grave so assiduously here .... This is of course besides the point that there is a qualitative difference between a descendant of slaves talking about a moment of "come uppance" and her audience agreeing with her - the sentiment may be misplaced, but it is entirely understandable - and the descendants of slave owners talking about "their kind". The difference is in the social history of this country, and the fact that until forty years ago, large parts of the country were legally segregated and its black population legally oppressed. Context is, indeed, everything. And, finally, another revealing point ... you simply *assume* that all Tea Partiers are white ... interesting, isn't it? At least, as they say, you're honest ... even if inadvertently.

- icarusr

July 22, 2010 at 12:46pm

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Seattle: "So, all the low-level DOJ folks that lost their job over the attorney firings (that Obama just decided were justified), and camping out at the house of John Yoo for memos he wrote, and naming the CIA agents involved with interrogation..." Err, you really are going off the deep end, aren't you. Yet again, pointless and irrelevant comparisons to divert attention from the real issue: lies, damned lies and distortions of the Republican media. But, I will take the bait. 1. Under Gonzales, the firings of US Attorneys were motivated by politics, and improperly so; "lower level" bureaucrats proceed to mislead Congress as to the real reasons. They were fired for good reason, not for "no reason". 2. John Yoo subverted the role of a US Attorney-General counsel and gave advice that subverted the Constitution. His advice was repudicated by a Republican holder of the Office of General Counsel in the US as *not* conforming to high standards of the profession. He should be disbarred and sent to wash dishes at Gitmo; he is, instead, a professor at a prestigious law school. There was and is ample reason to demonstrate against his continuing to pollute the airwaves and malform the profession. 3. Naming the CIA agents ... well, who did the naming? Did innocent people get named? Did torturers get prosecuted as a result of the naming? There was "reason"; to say there was no reason to name people engaged in torturing captives threatens to stretch, somewhat out of shape, the word "no".

- icarusr

July 22, 2010 at 12:55pm

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How was she hyperpartisan when she was a government employee? She wasn't. You lie. The entire event she described happened when she was working for a non-profit, not government. JC recounted the event in the first few paragraphs. Your argument falls flat via a lie. The liars got caught for a change, that's the issue they have with their lashing out. The reaction reminds me of my 10 yr. old when she's caught lying or doing something dumb. She tries to drag in her little brother for an completely unrelated issue to deflect her 'crime'. It just inflames the situation and makes her look like a worse liar since she can't tolerate it when she's nailed. Not much difference here.

- tnmats

July 22, 2010 at 1:00pm

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tnmats: not to mention that to have a *position* on an issue, even a disagreeable position on a racial issue, is not being "hyperpartisan" - whatever that means. There is no evidence of anyone's being hyperpartisan except for the perpetrators of the lie and their enablers, such as Seattle. You're right - having lied, they now lie again, distort again, besmirch again, libel again, and again, and again, to cover up for the initial lie. In plain daylight they lie, with confidence and without any sense of shame. That I feel sullied.

- icarusr

July 22, 2010 at 1:49pm

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I swear this whole incident from the right-wing commitariat is out of a PeeWee Herman movie when PeeWee is insulted: I know what your are, but what am I! Like I said, it's like a kid that gets nailed by her parents and tries to deflect it all onto an innocent sibling.

- tnmats

July 22, 2010 at 2:11pm

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Seattle: "A rank and file government employee must not be partisan. She was hyperpartisan." To be more "correct" don't you mean rank and file government employees must not "express" their partisanship? The must lie (if necessary) and keep quiet? Isn't that really what you want? B/C I doubt you would tell her how to "think" "Can you imagine a tea-partier telling a poor black person it would be best if they were taken care of by "one of their kind?" Yup, kind of hard to to argue. White person said that, copy-past-print, they'd be done. Now, I think the reality of the situation makes it more "acceptable" for her to say those things than maybe a white person (she did have plenty of 1st hand experience with racism, and racism-filled violence -- something you simpply cannot ignore -- especially if we're not going to ignore that if you changed her skin color, she'd be rode out of town on a rail) I listened to the woman and she was as sincere about finding that teaching moment as I have ever heard. Anyone who can get up in front of an audience and admit a mistake like that isn't someone we (as a society) ought to destroy. You disagree with her politics. Maybe more accurately, you disagree that her politics is in the "open." I might agree on that last point. So then, what did Sherrod "do" that was wrong? Other than display her politics in the open? "their very vocal approval at during Sharrod's described points of retribution were bothersome." You can (and probably will) call me an apologist, but Sherrod lived with racism. It was not some arcane period of time from a history book for her. I know you want her to "let it go," but here's my question. Put yourself in her shoes. and honestly - "honestly" now. Could you? Somebody murdered your father. He didn't die of a stroke, or lung cancer, someone proved to you how weak he was. And then burned a cross on your front lawn two months later to tell you how weak YOU were. I get your point. Why is hers so irrelevant?

- jmarshall

July 22, 2010 at 2:21pm

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ROFLMAO - tnmats!!! A Paul Reubens/Pee Wee Herman reference! As good as one from "Bluto." Outstanding. And - might I add - so pleased are Andrew Breitbart's supporters that they too are like Pee Wee's agent - are utterly thrilled with the manner in which he "handles" himself (in public).

- Bukharin

July 22, 2010 at 5:37pm

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icarusr writes: "But, I will take the bait." 1. The attorneys that were fired served at the pleasure of the president. He could fire them for whatever reason he wished. Holder agrees. Strike 1. 2. The case was reviewed by DoJ and Holder found no misconduct. Strike 2. 3. The NYT published the name of KSM's interrogator for reasons I don't think many understood, thus opening the retired CIA analyst to retaliation. Holder opened a probe, but never prosecuted. Strike 3. So, these were 3 examples in which the DoJ decided there was nothing to see, but in spite of that, you believe their names deserved to be dragged through the mud. Even though you already said 'Smearing a lower level government official for no reason shows they have no scruples and deserve to be treated as such' I think I am understanding your thinking: Due process means nothing. If you don't like them, it's scorched earth whether or not they did anything wrong. If you do like them, regardless of wrongdoing, nobody better lay a hand on them. Hmmm.

- seattleeng

July 22, 2010 at 8:25pm

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tnamts writes "How was she hyperpartisan when she was a government employee? " In her speech delivered in March 2010, while an employee of the USDA she said: "You know, I haven't seen such a mean-spirited people as I've seen lately over this issue of health care. Some of the racism we thought was buried. Didn't it surface? Now, we endured eight years of the Bush's and we didn't do the stuff these Republicans are doing because you have a black President." Do you want the guy at the post office that sells you a stamp wearing an Obama the Joker TShirt? Neither do I.

- seattleeng

July 22, 2010 at 8:27pm

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JMarshall writes "To be more "correct" don't you mean rank and file government employees must not "express" their partisanship? " Yes, that is correct, sorry And also writes: "So then, what did Sherrod "do" that was wrong? Other than display her politics in the open?" I listed the 2 items. Expressing her partisanship was #1. The second was what you just discussed. That's all I noted. I didn't say either was worth getting fired over. I think if the HR office at any company was reviewing this, they'd say the same thing. JMarshall writes "Why is hers so irrelevant?" Hers is a powerful story, and what she has overcome is enormous and heartbreaking. I cannot imagine the pain she has suffered. But are you saying that a government official is allowed to express racism if there is enough pain in their background? In that case, can a woman whos husband was killed in 9/11 refuse to rent to a muslim family, and you'd be OK with that? Or are you just saying you get it, kind of like when John McCain described the Vietnamese with the slur "gook" and everyone kind of said "well, jeez, the guy was tortured by them for 5 years, so let's just let it slide." If the former, then I don't get it. If the latter, then I get it. PS. Thanks for the rational discussion.

- seattleeng

July 22, 2010 at 8:42pm

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Seattle: I'll take first crack. Re: Sherrod's words which you quoted. What in there was so wrong? I've read the words, seen the tapes, and is this really what you're calling hyperpartisan? A person expressing her view of the current political situation? I'm not seeing anything there really raises my brow. 2. That government employees must not express their partisanship. I'll go back to #1. I'm not seeing what she said that was so bad ... other than she didn't particularly like GWB. Not necessarily a crime, even for a gov't employee. 3. "But are you saying that a government official is allowed to express racism if there is enough pain in their background?" No, I'm saying that our government sanctioned slavery, sanctioned jim crow, and older black people that I know had to live with something that you did not. Nor I for that matter. I'm assume that blacks might find it a little too cooncidental when looking at the makeup of the GOP. To me the real argument is not whether TP's and the GOP are racist (they're not) - it is a complete refusal by the TP and GOP to discuss racial matters beyond the realm "it's over" or "I didn't do it." That being said, do I have the answer? Things like reparations etc. are as stupid as they sound. But, we're here discussing the issue, which tells me that both sides have to give something before this issue is behind us. And really, truly, with virtually no black faces in the GOP (we've discussed this before) there is an issue ... and both sides are wrong. 4. RE: 9/11 & the "gook" reference. Again, our government created this. Our government let this linger. Not Muslims and not Vietnamese. The overreaction on the left makes it easy to defend yourself sometimes, but to say it is not an issue is disingenuous. In that case, it's only not an issue ... for you. Cheers

- jmarshall

July 22, 2010 at 9:40pm

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So, we agree on: 1) What she said some might find objectionable, but it wasn't a firing offense 2) Expressing racism is always bad, but some might let it slip from time to time for good reasons Can we also agree on: 1) NAACP failed massively on this 2) Administration failed massively on this 3) Fox had nothing to do with this 4) Breitbart didn't do nearly as many things wrong here as 60 minutes did with their forged Bush memos

- seattleeng

July 22, 2010 at 11:39pm

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Ha I agree on 1 & 2 Can we agree that (3) if Fox is a real news organization, then they (4) are just as bad as the dreaded MSM? Only with more big-boobed blondes ...

- jmarshall

July 23, 2010 at 12:20am

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Yes, she was hyperpartisan, bemoaning mean-spirited people and a GOP unified to destroy a duly elected president just for spite. Tsktsk. Talk about a victim mentality gone amok. Let's just agree you're going to counter anything said by anyone supporting the Democrats and this president with distortions and half-truths. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. And in Bush's case, the White House never denied that W the gist of Rather's report.

- tnmats

July 23, 2010 at 1:46pm

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