Good Grief: Obama Administration Reconsiders Sherrod Firing
I don’t believe for a minute that Sherrod’s firing wasn’t ordered directly by Barack Obama. There is no way that Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack handled this without first running it up to the President, and indeed yesterday Vilsack’s predecessor Ed Schafer said that during term in office it’s the sort of decision that absolutely would have been put in front of the President.
Obama made the call. He demanded Sherrod’s job. I’m convinced of that. And now, it looks like they may be backpedaling quickly:
WASHINGTON – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday he will reconsider the department’s decision to oust a black employee over racially tinged remarks after learning more about what she said.
Vilsack issued a short statement early Wednesday morning after Shirley Sherrod, who until Tuesday was the Agriculture Department’s director of rural development in Georgia, said she was pressured to resign because of her comments that she didn’t give a white farmer as much help as she could have 24 years ago.
Sherrod said her remarks, delivered in March at a local NAACP banquet in Georgia, were part of a larger story about learning from her mistakes and racial reconciliation, not racism, and they were taken out of context by a blogger who posted only part of her speech.
This is the part that had me chuckling:
“I am of course willing and will conduct a thorough review and consider additional facts to ensure to the American people we are providing services in a fair and equitable manner,” Vilsack said.
Nice of him to grant a thorough review…after the woman was fired and humiliated.
Tags: Barack Obama, department of agriculture, shirley sherrod, tom vilsack
