UnNews:Sherrod reinstated, opposition giddy
UnNews Audio (file info) | |
Listen to this story! | |
Problems playing this file? You might be a dope. |
The news outlet with approval higher than Congress | ✪ | UnNews | ✪ | Sunday, December 22, 2024, 14:20:59 (UTC) |
Sherrod reinstated, opposition giddy |
23 July 2010
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Low-level agriculture bureaucrat Shirley Sherrod has been re-hired with a personal apology from President Obama, as the entire U.S. Government spent three days on partisan jousting.
Internet blogger Andrew Breitbart published a tape where the USDA worker describes denying a payment to a white farmer and telling him to seek help from someone "of his own kind." The decades-old anecdote was in a speech to the NAACP, whose shocked members can be heard urging Ms. Sherrod to leave the banquet hall, saying things like, "You go, girl!" (Unlike the Tea Party, there are no racists in the NAACP.)
A terrified Agriculture Department pestered Ms. Sherrod by cell phone to resign, finally demanding she "pull over to the side of the road" (presumably, to chant, "I break with thee" three times, which is the only way you can de-vest from your federal pension).
Members of the opposition party, whose name was not immediately known, were partying at the Watergate Hotel, where shouts were heard of, "We captured a pawn!"
However, in a portion of the speech that Mr. Breitbart did not play, Ms. Sherrod tells the NAACP of her epiphany. She used to work to deny benefits to whites--but when she got her government job, she learned instead to deny benefits to "the Haves." In other words, she learned the government's official, non-racial term for people too white to get federal benefits.
Ultimately, everyone heard the full tape, everyone including the President apologized, Ms. Sherrod got her job back, where she will still be able to ensure that lawful benefits flow to only the right kind of farmers, and separately, the Gulf of Mexico is still full of tar balls.
Opposition leaders, whose names were not available, were pleased that the gambit forced Obama to flip-flop. And--even though the only two Congressmen who ever criticized Obama still have their jaws wired shut--the Minority Leader hopes that some day his party will force Obama to reverse course on a policy that actually matters.
Sources[edit]
Mary Clare Jalonick "Sherrod gets biggest 'I'm sorry' - from Obama". Associated Press, July 22, 2010