08 Mar 2011 @ 3:44 PM 

James O’Keefe and Andrew Breitbart have no credibility whatsoever, after their various misdeeds of the past few years. In case they’ve completely escaped you, these stunts include “fake pimp going to ACORN offices,” which revealed nothing untoward within the organization and were nearly completely fictionalized after editing; “Shirley Sherrod is a racist” video, which was so deceptively edited that it showed the exact opposite of reality; and of course, attempting to illegally bug a Senator’s office. By this time, if you see O’Keefe or Breitbart mentioned in any sort of journalistic story, you would be justified in assuming there is no truth to it at all.

With that being said, how in the hell could this be any worse for NPR? NPR marketing droid Ron Schiller tells fake Muslims that the GOP and Tea Party are racists and entirely owned by the evangelical movement, as well as saying that NPR would be better off without federal money. Obviously, I believe his opinions have some validity – the current GOP has been in thrall to the Religious Right for decades, some in the Tea Party have a significant xenophobic streak, and NPR’s begging means they end up beholden to whichever way the political winds blow. But, I can say those things in public or in private because I have no authority or power in any significant way. A senior NPR executive should just shut the fuck up when dealing with near-strangers. It doesn’t help Schiller’s appearance much that he left NPR last week for another job. That may be true, but it sure does look like he’s running away and giving NPR deniability.

I’m very curious how this will end up playing out. There seems to be more than enough stupid to go around on both sides.

Posted By: Gary
Last Edit: 08 Mar 2011 @ 03:45 PM

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Responses to this post » (6 Total)

 
  1. Munsey says:

    The original Sherrod video was uninterrupted 2:38 long. That is way longer than most excerpts one might see on the news or the web. In fact, excerpts are usually intentionally short in order to comply with Fair Use law. Should GWB sue everyone who published excerpts of him speaking that were 2:38 or shorter, accusing them of “deceptive editing”? Also, Sherrod, in her own words, said “I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have lost their farmland and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land — so I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough.” Are you really arguing that is proper behavior for a government employee dealing with a client, even if she did apparently have an epiphany later on and realize that she should be discriminating against rich people, not white people?

    • Gary says:

      Actually, the entire video is 43 minutes long. It quite clearly shows that Sherrod did not in fact give poor service to the farmer in 1986; she helped him save his farm, overriding the poor service given by the white lawyer she sent him to. She sent him to that lawyer partly because she thought the white lawyer would help the white farmer, and partly because she was not a lawyer. Regardless, the remaining 40 minutes of video that Breitbart didn’t show were interesting and illuminating, although Sherrod is not a very good speaker.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9NcCa_KjXk

  2. Michael Munsey says:

    Put it this way. If someone can hear an uninterrupted 2:38 segment of you talking and come away with the wrong idea, either you are a really bad speaker, or your intent really was that.

  3. Gary says:

    Or the segment cut off right before the REVERSAL of expectations, which is a common rhetorical gambit. For instance, if I said you were an idiot savant, but the SAVANT was cut off, it changes from a compliment on your skill in one area to a blatant insult. Not that I would ever say such a thing, of course.

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