Oh, And...

I somewhat dismissed the Shirley Sherrod story because it made no sense, and then the rest of the story came out yesterday and I linked to articles at my other blog, including the original (not the maliciously-edited) video of the speech given in 1986. So I'll just transfer that here and add Avedon Carol's commentary and Jurassicpork's long essay.  Someone had a paragraph I wanted to cite, but I accidentally closed the tab and now can't find it.

1. Driftglass for the overview of the perp:
   

   But for years now I have always, always, always presumed that somehow, some way the Conservative who is opining about the state of the nation is in some crucial way just fucking lying his ass off.
   
   Sadly, after all this time, it has proved to be a presumption that has rarely failed me.

2. Shark-fu's admonition to Secretary Vilsack.
3. Cynic guest-posting at Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog at The Atlantic on reading the situation.
4. Mr. Coates himself.
5. Via Mr. Coates, the video. (It's 43 minutes. You have that long for the truth, yes?)
6. Professor Susurro has the floor:
   

   While I never expected President Obama to dawn a cape and save the universe, I leave that to Ms. Magazine, I did expect him to take a reasoned and effective approach to the many issues impacting N. Americans, including those that take on racial, sexual, or gender dimensions. His inability to do this even amongst his own employees and especially in the context of racialized cries of “reverse discrimination” that make this country even less safe for black people and even less likely to employ and retain black people in middle class positions, I cannot help but turn my eyes to him and say “Brotha, can you spare some change?”

7.  Update.
   

   Pretty much everyone else had egg on his face — from the conservative bloggers and pundits who first pushed the inaccurate story to Mr. Vilsack, who looked stricken as he told reporters he had offered Ms. Sherrod, until Monday the Agriculture Department’s rural development director in Georgia, a new job that would give her a “unique opportunity” to help the agency move past its checkered civil rights history. She told him she would think about it.

8. Another citing of Republic of T:
   

   But in the conservative worldview people don’t learn and the don’t change (or, at least, it doesn’t count unless people change by becoming conservatives). What Shirley Sherrod was during the experience she describes in the two minutes of her speech is all she is and all she will ever be. In fact, those two minutes are the sum total of her character and all that is needed to judge her. And nothing in that speech could have caused the people in the audience to change, or to rethink their own prejudice or bias? (After all, any real change would have made them conservatives like O’Reilly. Right?)

9. And Arthur Silber discusses a vector in the case.

Also, I'm thinking about setting up the Pond Scum Defense League, because comparing such conservatives to pond scum is insulting to pond scum.