Obama on Sherrod: Vilsack acted stupidly

posted at 9:16 pm on July 22, 2010 by Allahpundit

I’ve paraphrased slightly in the headline in honor of his immortal Gates/Crowley gaffe. Conspicuously and lamentably omitted from the clip below: The One’s thoughts on just what it is that’s teachable about this “teachable moment.” To see what the master wordsmith came up with in that vein, we turn to the ABC transcript:

“If there’s a lesson to be drawn from this episode, it’s that rather than us jumping to conclusions and pointing fingers at each other, we should all look inward and try to examine what’s in our own hearts and, as a consequence, I think we will continue to make progress,” he said.

That’s as vapidly safe a conclusion as one could possibly draw, which, given how many landmines the people involved in this story have already stepped on, is probably the wise way to play it politically. Speaking of landmines, retiring liberal lion David Obey would like you to know that he’s quite outraged at the “piggish character assassins” at Fox News who were so “eager to peddle” Breitbart’s clip by, er, not running it until after Sherrod was already fired. Meanwhile, Media Matters might just have blown the lid off a vast right-wing conspiracy to push the clip on Monday, even though … none of the alleged conspirators, which include yours truly, were in contact with each other. In fact, I didn’t even e-mail Ed about the story until 6:30 on Tuesday night, shortly after the NAACP issued its second statement vindicating Sherrod. What can I say? The Journolisters may be pros but we, alas, are amateurs.

Update: A lingering mystery to this fading story: How did Sherrod find out in advance that the tape was about to be made public?

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Disa on Obama: He acted stupidly. Again.

disa on July 22, 2010 at 10:38 PM

Re accelerated aging, a few reasons. I see him as a micromanager. You can micromanage a small group of workers or a tiny company, but you can’t micromanage a presidential administration. It will drive him crazy.

Second, he has a very high maintenance wife. I believe that the twice-a-week wild parties at the WH, the frequent vacations, the food-czar nonsense, and the fly-dates are all attempts to keep her happy. In Chicago it was said that there was not a single high-society or machine party that the Obamas would miss. M’chell misses that world, and she has tried to transport it to DC. Watch for a major disaster if she talks him into giving her a visible policy role, which I believe she wants. She would be like a very angry version of Joe Biden.

slickwillie2001 on July 22, 2010 at 10:40 PM

btw, yeah i think he was set up…but Breitbart is a bomb thrower.

sure, sometimes your fingers get singed….but you can cause a lot of havoc along the way. or, to put it in terms that the lefty trolls will understand: you never know whose face is going to get smashed in.

r keller on July 22, 2010 at 10:40 PM

On Anderson Cooper, the post-racial Mrs. Sherrod just said Andrew Breitbart wants to go back to the time of slavery.

MayBee on July 22, 2010 at 10:41 PM

Breitbart must have a compelling reason for his prolonged silence. Ann Coulter says he received the video already edited. Was he set up deliberately or was his source simply sloppy? Hopefully, all will be revealed soon.

Terrie on July 22, 2010 at 10:43 PM

Doo,doo,doo,doo,doo,doo,doo,doo…….

sandee on July 22, 2010 at 10:43 PM

Sherrod needs to stay gone. Her little quote on Andersen’s puling show is Racecard 101. Nobody can disagree with a “person of color” without yearning for the days of slavery..NONE of us can remember those days, and no one here has been a slave. I am sick to death of Obama, Sherrod and the rest of their ilk!

I will not feel guilty for disagreement with their views. Their views are vile. The racecard is loathesome.

clnurnberg on July 22, 2010 at 10:45 PM

Adults are in charge busy passing the buck.

hillbillyjim on July 22, 2010 at 10:45 PM

He looks like sh!t in that pic. This job is killing him…

..and us.

katy on July 22, 2010 at 9:20 PM

katy, I had exactly the same thought when I saw the pic; been noticing it for some time now.

Howevah, I don’t think it’s because the job is killing him.

He doesn’t have to think, just read the totus and execute his orders from his Sorosberry, and then go about his days and nights of gourmet meals, travel, meeting and greeting various sports teams, celebs; enjoying WH parties and concerts galore. Let’s not forget golf and mucho vacay time.

In fact, because he’s not giving orders, but taking them, I think he’s found time for, how did he put it in his book again?……

…….“Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it.”

Not much pot, booze or blow berri can’t afford these days.

“Hey, baby, daddy’s back. Did you miss me as much as I missed you?” snooorrrtttt. “yeah, you did.”

tigerlily on July 22, 2010 at 10:48 PM

That’s right. I’m the President and, as I’ve always said and make no mistake about it, the bus stops here, on his little pin head.

[aside] What’s that? “Buck”? Not “bus”? But we’ve, well, we’ve always used the bus. Worked on my gramma, Rev. Wright, tons of folks! Oh, alright, Rahm. Tell David to quit, quit yelling.

And I’m, uh, taking the, uh, bus like the regular folks do because the, uh, buck stops here. And I, uh, called Shirley, uh, several times to tell her about my experiences writing about, uh, race, for my books, which, uh, coincidentally caused another, uh, buck or two to stop here. Heh.

tree hugging sister on July 22, 2010 at 10:52 PM

So now I’m wondering if she knew about the tape why was there a need to warn anyone it was coming if her comments were so innocent? Something fishy about this whole thing.

You mean, it’s almost like she knew HOW the tape had been edited to only show the worst part of her anecdote?

Earlier today, I nearly posted that Sherrod herself might be the source of Breitbart’s tape. And then I decided that was too crazy of an idea and made me sound like a paranoid lunatic.

I need to stop second guessing myself. Really, nothing is beyond these folks.

CJ on July 22, 2010 at 11:03 PM

Another lingering mystery: why did Sherodd get her job right after her lefty group settled their reparations lawsuit?

PattyJ on July 22, 2010 at 11:05 PM

What can I say? The Journolisters may be pros but we, alas, are amateurs.

If that’s what it means to be ‘pro’, then viva les ameteurs! .

To ere is human, but to REALLY foul things up takes a college degree.

Yeah, I can say that. I come from a whole family of college graduates.

listens2glenn on July 22, 2010 at 11:19 PM

Vilsack was just taking lessons from the great Obamarrhoid.

LarryG on July 23, 2010 at 12:06 AM

What can I say? The Journolisters may be pros but we, alas, are amateurs.

Maybe we can talk Karl Rove out of some of the cerebral implants or whatever he used to keep his people on message. Now there’s man who knows how to run a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.

Lily on July 23, 2010 at 12:06 AM

Good job democrat voters. You did well in 2008.

Inanemergencydial on July 23, 2010 at 12:21 AM

“we should all look inward”

So we know who’s ass to kick.

What’s this “we” stuff? How did I get involved in all this? I’ve just been going back and forth to work, trying to make ends meet – and all of a sudden I have to look inward? This is your rat hole Mr. president, not mine.

Mr_Magoo on July 23, 2010 at 12:27 AM

This Obama guy is low. He is so low that . . . .

(Please complete the rest . . . .)

Sherman1864 on July 23, 2010 at 12:37 AM

it’s that rather than us jumping to conclusions and pointing fingers at each other, we should all look inward

in other words, don’t blame me…what a crock

cmsinaz on July 23, 2010 at 6:34 AM

A lingering mystery to this fading story: How did Sherrod find out in advance that the tape was about to be made public?

That is a good question. I heard her say something about warning people…and I wondered what Sherrod was talking about.

Obama is a weenie. He really is.

Terrye on July 23, 2010 at 7:14 AM

Obama acting stupidly on race, twice that we know about.

What’s making the Obama regime so jumpy about race? They are stuffing the federal government with reverse racism rules and payouts so they can make sure the wealth is redistributed to the ones that “really own it”. Bill Ayers wrote all about in it in his Prairie Fire Manefesto written in 1969. Took a while to figure out how to use the ‘black colony’ to destroy the white imperialism of America, but that is now in full swing.

Sherrod’s speech was about giving out free houses from the USDA, just hidden from sight. Watch the whole tape as she was telling her friends at the NAACP about it.

tarpon on July 23, 2010 at 7:16 AM

Whew, Obama acted fast on this one! A day to fire and rehire her, then it took him just a couple of hours to call Sherrod and apologize.

How long did it take Obama to call up the CEO of BP? Question: If the CEO of BP was black would Obama have called sooner?

This is all about Obama trying to maintain his base of 98% of the black vote. He does not want them to abandon him at the voting polls.

albill on July 23, 2010 at 7:21 AM

There’s no way Vilsack does this without orders directly from the WH.

PatMac on July 22, 2010 at 10:06 PM

…and anyone who tries to push anything else is not to be believed or trusted.

thomasaur on July 22, 2010 at 10:11 PM

Dittos.

petefrt on July 23, 2010 at 8:02 AM

Then Obama acted stupidly for firing her….yes Obama fired her.

For some talk show hosts including Beck should listen, better yet read the entire speech. She is a racist and worse she is a Marxist.

lilium on July 23, 2010 at 8:15 AM

I find Media Matters involvement in this whole thing to be the most hilarious irony of all.

An organization whose sole purpose is to snip and cut and quote conservatives out of context, insert their own “context,” and then send thousands of emails to media outlets smearing conservatives for bastardized quotations that Media Matters claims they “said.” They’re whining about “editing” and “selective editing.”

O RLY?

Here’s an example of what the high priests of ethics at Media Matters do. They whine about something innocuous Rush said during his three-hour show, but only cite this from his transcript:

LIMBAUGH: And he also said that one nation should not have — no nation should have an advantage over another. Now, folks, can I tell you — before we go to the break — can I — can I translate that for you? When Barack Hussein Obama says that no nation should have an advantage over another, what he means is, it’s time to cut the United States down to size.

The United States has had an unfair advantage. We haven’t earned it; we have stolen it. We have taken what the rest of the world has; we have not compensated them for it. We have used it to enrich a precious few in this country excluding minorities, and women, and the usual minority panache [sic].”

(SNIP). They don’t provide anything else he said. WHERE’S THE WHOLE TRANSCRIPT, MEDIA MATTERS? ARE YOU DISTORTING AND TAKING OUT OF CONTEXT WHAT HE SAID? WHY AREN’T YOU AIRING THE WHILE TRANSCRIPT? WHERE’S THE WHOLE STORY? HMMMM? ARE YOU TRYING TO “BREITBART” RUSH? LIKE THEY’VE DONE EVERY DAY SINCE THEY WERE FORMED?

QED for these dunces.

Plus, if you visit Media Spatters, its the most hilarious thing you’ll ever see.

It’s literally ALL BREITBART STORIES, all trashing him, all smearing him, all quoting him out of context and re-writing the context, all lying, all propagandizing and demagoguing, all the time.

Bigger hypocrites there never were in the world.

Good Lt on July 23, 2010 at 8:23 AM

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut, I don’t think it’s such a far-out suggestion that someone may have sent Breitbart the edited version of that tape in order to “get” him. The problem is, if that’s the case then it backfired on them thanks to the kneejerk reaction of Vilsack, Obama, et al.

So now Obama has to drag Shirley Sherrod out from under the bus and throw Vilsack under instead. It’s like a three-ring circus without the elephants.

RebeccaH on July 23, 2010 at 11:53 AM

Jeff Goldstein nailed the issue with this.

and this. With added wisdom from Morgan Freeman on how to deal with race issues going forward.

Mr. Joe on July 23, 2010 at 3:01 PM

I call for a beer summit…

patch on July 23, 2010 at 4:52 PM

Comment pages: 1 2