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The Shirley Sherrod story started on Monday with the release of a heavily edited video about a life experience which occurred decades ago. This story was released by a right-wing authoritarian (RWA) web site known for its lies. By Wednesday morning the lies had gone viral, everyone was reporting on it, and Ms. Sherrod was fired. By Wednesday afternoon, the lies had been exposed. Now it’s Thursday and the media is still all over it and it will probably continue to dominate the news cycle into tomorrow as
Ms. Sherrod considers a new job offer from the Administration.
With all the RWA noise and lies occupying all sides of cable and network news, one has to wonder why all this fuss happened this week? The RWA blog that posted it had been holding onto the video for some time. They were waiting for just the right time to release it. But why now? Do you think the RWAs were responding to last weeks NAACP complaints about Tea Party bigotry, or were they trying to overshadow other big news?
Do you know what new legislation was signed into law this morning? Do you know whether this new law was about Wall Street or Main street reform? Do you know if this new law was about consumer protection or bank protection? Do you wonder why you may not have heard much about the Obama signing ceremony earlier today? (See the links at the end of this posting for details.)
If the RWAs are out to win the mid-term elections and win back The White House in 2012 by making sure the Obama administration fails, then it makes sense that any Obama successes must be obliterated from the public’s memory. That’s why all the fuss.
Months from now, what story will most of us remember? The one about the signing of the Todd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act or the one about Ms. Sherrod, an innocent victim of the RWA message machine?
It’s all about information control and the RWAs have been fine tuning their communication skills for decades while the Democrats and liberal news media are always there to help by repeating the RWA talking points.
I don’t agree that the reporting of the Sherrod incident is an intended distraction by the media. I agree that the release of the doctored-video was probably timed so as to discredit Obama’s recent legislative victories. But the fact that the media has picked up the story about the Sherrod-fraud is to their credit; reporters miss far too much, and do almost no investigation into facts. Most media outlets simply pick up a story that’s been printed by some other outlet and reprint it without verifying anything (as happened to Clinton when pundits were keeping the story alive by reporting each others punditry).
In the case of Sherrod, I think it’s important to keep the story and the fraud alive and in the public’s face, and tie it in to all the other exposed frauds. The public needs to be made MORE aware of the lies that are continuously being perpetuated by the fanatical-christian / right-wing-racist-nazis.
The Democrats need to learn how to fight and get on the offensive rather than ‘reacting’ and ‘responding’ and allowing the nut-cases to set the agenda. Obama is far too conciliatory, and his “niceness” is going to prove to be his downfall as well as the nation’s (think of one-termer Jimmy Carter, who lost because of his failure to get tough in the middle east, despite his achievements nationally).
Comment by Geof in Fort Worth — July 22, 2010 @ 4:53 AM